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THE ACHIEVEMENT OF 
THE MASTER 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
(Now ready) 


LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
In collaboration with Carl Everett Purinton 
(Now ready) 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 
In collaboration with Sadie Brackett Costello 
(Now ready) 


In Preparation 
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ISRAEL 





CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF 
THE MASTER 


BY \/ Secon sew 
HERBERT R. PURINTON 


PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE AND RELIGION 
IN BATES COLLEGE 


AND 


SADIE BRACKETT COSTELLO 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1926 


Copyricut, 1926, By 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 





PREFACE 


What did Jesus do that made him the central figure 
of human history? Did he so far surpass all others in 
his deeds and teachings that he will occupy permanently 
the supreme place in the thought and love of mankind? 
Did he discover and express the infinite worth of every 
human soul? Did he show the way, open and free, to 
all mankind, by which a man could reach God? Did 
he describe and show by his own character what kind of 
a life the Heavenly Father wants every person to live? 
The aim of this book is to answer these questions anew 
for a generation that is seeking for facts in every realm. 


For the past seven years the authors have tried to 
bring high school and college students face to face with 
the historical Jesus. They have used especially the 
three documents that present the earliest information 
about him—the Gospel of Mark, the Sermon on the 
Mount, and the Letters of Paul. The result has been a 
new sense of the actual achievements of the Master 
in both deeds and teachings. The methods suggested 
at the end of each chapter have proven their value. 
Having discovered the historical facts the students 
have been led to realize their spiritual meaning by a 
study of the best pictures and books, and to apply the 
principles thus discovered to actual cases in modern 
social and individual life. 


Sadie Brackett Costello has contributed out of her 
experience of twenty years as teacher in a city church 
Vv 


v1 PREFACE 


school most of the descriptive and illustrative material 
of all the chapters. The undersigned has furnished 
most of the critical and historical material that was 
necessary in describing the background and the events 
of the life of Jesus. May those who read this book 
come to value aright the achievements of Jesus in 
individual character and thought and to appreciate 
“the incomparable significance of his personality as a 
force still working in history!” 


HERBERT R. PurintTon. 
Lewiston, MaIne, 
August 1, 1926. 


CHAPTER 


I. 
II. 


Il. 


WALT: 
Vill. 


CONTENTS 


PART 1 
PREPARATION 

PAGH 
The World into which Jesus Came...........--- 1 
The Religion which Jesus Inherited............. 10 

PART 2 

OPENING EVENTS 

The Herald of the New Era...........--+-eee0- 19 
The Baptism of Jesus.......-.sseeceeeeceeeeee , 28 
The Temptation. 2s :/c)0 44 deka bbe slot» ees a ye 8 acs 37 

PART 3 

POPULAR PREACHER AND HEALER 

Jesus Wins the Masses in Galilee............... 45 
Jesus Challenges the Religious Leaders.......... 56 
ERIM ORAMINEADES <2) i905 ds. tisin's cists spe eid ls ee res 64 

PART 4 

THE TEACHER 

Announcement of the New Ideals............... 74 
The New Religion Contrasted with the Old...... 87 
Ao New Meaning in-Prayer: «..6.2. 2.05 tees ees ss 97 
The Right Attitude toward Money...........--- 105 


Jesus and the Race Problem’... ........esseeeees 113 
vii 


Vili CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGH 


XIV. Things that Make for Happiness............... 121 
XV. The Supreme Teacher and His Parables......... 128 

PART 5 

FAREWELL TO GALILEE 

XVI. A Decision that Meant Death.................. 137 
XVII. ‘He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem” ......... 144 

PART 6 

THE LAST DAYS 

XVIII. Jesus Announces Himself as Messiah........... 151 
XIX. Collision with the Priests...................... 157 
XX. Condemnation of the Jerusalem Scribes......... 163 
AI, The Night of the Betrayal. (0.0.45). (eo 170 
PONT The ‘Trial of Jesus). ..a. 2. dene oe 177 
XXIII. The Meaning of the Cross.................... 183 
ALY,” Victory Over Death...) 0. 2. 190 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF 
THE MASTER 





THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Part 1 
PREPARATION 


CHAPTER I 
THE WORLD INTO WHICH JESUS CAME 


Introduction. The Difference Jesus Made. 


As a spring of clear water on the mountain brings 
health to the people in the valley below, so Christ brings 
happiness to those who live in regions where his teach- 
ings prevail. Among the most hopeless and desolate 
of the nations of earth to-day—Palestine, Egypt, and 
Arabia—are the ones which in the early centuries re- 
jected Christ, while those that have tried to follow his 
teachings have been blessed above all others. 

Let us call four witnesses that we may appreciate 
at its true value his influence on mankind. 

First, the historian, George Holley Gilbert: “Tracing 
his way along the stream of Christian life back to its 
humble source in Galilee, observing what that stream 
has wrought across the wide expanse of years, the 
traveller comes at length to that far-distant spring 
with a mingled sense of awe and mystery. This stream 
of life, still rising slowly as it flows, has touched with 
hope a third of all the millions of mankind, and makes 
to grow along its banks the fairest things, the things 
of greatest promise, that we see in all the earth.” 

1 


2 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Second, Thomas Carlyle, the great English author: 
“The life and death of the Divine Man in Judea (was) 
the cause of immeasurable change to all people in the 
world.”” An example of the changes caused by Jesus 
is the dating of modern history from his birth. Whether 
we profess to be Christians or not, we confess Christ in 
a sense whenever we date a letter. 

Third, a great dramatist, George Bernard Shaw: “I 
am ready to admit that, after contemplating the world 
and human nature for nearly sixty years, I see no way 
out of the world’s misery but the way which would 
have been found by Christ’s will, if he had undertaken 
the work of a modern practical statesman.” . 

Fourth, Richard Watson Gilder, late editor of The 
Century Magazine: 


“Tf Jesus Christ is a cok 
And only a man, I sa 
That of all mankind i cleave to him, 
And to him I cleave alway. 


If Jesus Christ is a God, 

And the only God, I swear 

I will follow him through heaven and hell, 
The earth, the sea, and the air.’ 


In this chapter we shall talk of the place where Jesus 
lived, and the conditions under which he did the deeds 
that are so transforming the world. A little study of 
maps, kings, and customs will help us understand him 
and his teachings. 


1. Geography. 

On the hill that rises behind Nazareth to a height 
of sixteen hundred feet the boy Jesus often stood and 
gazed, no doubt, at the blue Mediterranean plainly 
visible only twenty miles away. Could he have looked 


THE WORLD INTO WHICH JESUS CAME 3 


across the sea toward the west to a distance of twelve 
hundred miles he would have seen Rome, the capital 
of the world and the centre of the power that was to 
put him to death on the cross. The Roman Empire, 
under the rule of Augustus Cesar, controlled all the 
provinces on the Mediterranean. Here approximately 
fifty million people dwelt in comparative peace from the 
beginning of the reign of Augustus (80 B. C.) to about 
180 A. D. How little these people dreamed of the 
mysterious event that was to change the whole world! 

Travel between the nations had begun to be a com- 
mon thing. Excellent roads led from Rome to every 
province. Even to little Palestine the way was well 
known, for more than half a century before Christ 
Pompey had marched his armies to Jerusalem. On 
these fine roads many peoples mingled in a strange 
confusion of language and race. The seven thousand 
miles of paved roads around the Mediterranean not 
only made possible the work of Saint Paul but also in- 
creased the spread of Christianity by making it easy for 
Christians to move about from city to city and province 
to province. In this way the gospel of Jesus became 
known in every large city of the world. Universal law, 
universal language, and safe travel on the great high- 
ways had very much to do with the fact that in less 
than three hundred years the Roman Empire was con- 
verted to Christianity. 

It was in a tiny province of this great empire that 
Jesus was born. Palestine, his birthplace, was at the 
eastern end of the Mediterranean. It was about the 
size of Vermont, or about one-third as large as the State 
of Maine. The length was no more than one hundred 
and fifty miles and the widest part of the land would 
not extend to a hundred miles. 


4 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


2. Government. 


From the birth of Jesus to the fall of Jerusalem, 70 
A. D., the life of the little Jewish nation was a tragedy, 
ending with the slaughter of thousands of Jews and 
the destruction of their sacred temple. That King 
Herod was cruel is shown by the story of his murder 
of the children in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). He not 
only taxed the people heavily and murdered many 
leading citizens of whom he was suspicious, but also 
interfered in most provoking ways with the religious 
life of the Jews. 

An example of the bitter feeling against Herod is the 
affair of the Roman Eagle which the king had placed 
above the gate of the temple. A group of young Jews 
became excited over the matter and pulled down the 
eagle. Herod murdered these young men and later his 
son Archelaus, who had become king, enraged by the 
mourning for these murdered Jews, killed three thou- 
sand more. Archelaus was removed and Pilate made 
governor. That is how it happened that Pilate had 
charge of Judea in Jesus’ time. 

But even under a Roman governor life was almost 
as oppressive as under a Czar of Russia. Everybody 
had to pay annoying taxes. There were import and 
export duties, tolls in the market-place on food and 
clothing, land taxes and poll taxes. The tax-collectors, 
called publicans, were hated and despised especially 
because they overcharged the people so much. No 
one can appreciate Jesus and his teachings without re- 
calling that question which was uppermost in the minds 
of the people: ‘Is it lawful to give tribute to Cesar?” 

Besides the constant fret of the taxes there was the 
presence of the Roman soldier in uniform to remind the 
Jews of their subjection to the heathen power. Jesus 


THE WORLD INTO WHICH JESUS CAME 5 


had to solve his own personal life problem in view of 
this central problem of his people—the overshadowing 
dominion of Rome which was soon to lead to his nation’s 
doom. As Lincoln’s career was determined by the 
awiful tragedy of the Civil War, so, in a measure, it is 
true of Jesus, that his career was conditioned by the 
ceaseless struggle of the Jews with the Romans. 


3. Curious Notions Held by the People of Jesus’ 
Time. 

Every age has its own science, which is but another 
name for the explanation of things. The people of 
Jesus’ day believed the earth was flat and the sky was 
a metal dome above it (Job 37:18 and 38:18). This flat * 
surface was circular in form, the circle being the meet- 
ing-place of sky and sea (Job 26:10, Proverbs 8: 27, 
and Isaiah 40:22). Palestine was the centre of the 
circle and Jerusalem was the centre of Palestine. The 
future abode of the dead, whether good or bad, was in 
Sheol, which was located in the lowest part of the earth. 
There the shadow of death reigns, and there are no 
glimmers of daylight, and from it there is no return 
(Job 10:21, 22). In the time of Jesus the upper part of 
Sheol was called ‘‘Abraham’s Bosom” and the lower 
part Gehenna, where sinners were tormented in flames 
(Luke 16: 22-28). 

The people believed that the world was full of little 
invisible demons more powerful than man. One day 
when Jesus was on the east side of the Sea of Galilee 
‘‘there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean 
spirit. ... And always, night and day in the tombs 
and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting 
himself with stones. ... He (Jesus) said unto him, 
come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man... 


6 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


and the unclean spirits came out and rushed into the 
swine” (Mark 5:1-13). These demons could cause 
sickness, insanity, and make a man speak in ecstasy.’ 
The writers of the New Testament do not explain 
whether Jesus believed in demons, but they tell many 
stories about his casting them out. 


4. Moral Bankruptcy. 

~ Seneca describes Roman immorality in much the 
same language as Saint Paul (Romans 1 : 24-32). “ All 
things,” says Seneca, “are full of crimes and vices}; 
daily grows the appetite for sin; daily wanes the sense 
of shame. Iniquity is given such a range in public, and 
is so mighty in the breasts of all, that innocence is not 
merely rare; it has no existence.” Seneca himself, while 
he gave good advice to others, added to his fortune by 
loaning money at excessively high rates of interest and 
by writing false praises of the Emperors Claudius and 
Nero. 

These two emperors wasted the people’s money on 
luxury. Caligula spent half a million dollars on a single 
day’s banqueting. Nero built a palace in which was a 
circular banquet room which revolved perpetually day 
and night, in imitation of the motion of the celestial 
bodies. The supper rooms had ceilings with compart- 
ments inlaid with ivory, which were made to revolve 
and scatter flowers and to sprinkle costly perfumes on 
the guests. When Nero made a journey he had a retinue 
of a thousand carriages and the animals were shod with 
silver. 

One of the evils of the time was the corruption of 
family life. Divorces were very common. The practice 
of infanticide was frequent. One Roman judge, Paulus, 
decided that parents had the right to put newly born 


THE WORLD INTO WHICH JESUS CAME 7 


children to death if they desired. Roman theatres 
pandered to the depraved taste of the populace. Gladia- 
torial shows were made exciting by inhuman spectacles 
in which captives in war were compelled to fight with 
wild beasts. One writer has shown that this wretched 
state of morals, though in many ways unfavorable 
_ to the coming of Christianity yet, on the other hand, 
created a demand for such teachings as Christ came to 
give. 


5. A World Full of Religions. 


The low state of morals which we have been describ- 
ing does not imply a lack of religious systems. The old 
state religions of Rome and Greece were carried on in 
great splendor by hired officials. Temples, in which 
many gods were worshipped were very numerous. 
Every tribe and nation in the provinces of Rome had 
one or more religions. In Palestine Judaism held 
sway; in Persia there was Zoroastrianism; in India, 
Hinduism. But what the world needed was a new way 
of life, and a new idea of the present life and the future. 

Before Christianity reached Rome three great emo- 
tional religions had been brought in to meet this need. 
Mithraism, the worship of the sun-god, came to Rome 
from Asia Minor. Because of its exciting character it 
was accepted, among others, by many soldiers. Con- 
verts were baptized in the blood of a bull. Meetings 
were held in a small, underground chapel. Full member- 
ship was attained by seven successive initiations. They 
had in addition to baptism a sort of communion meal, 
and members were sealed on the forehead, as Chris- 
tians were sealed with the sign of the cross. 

Another popular religion was the worship of Isis 
and Osiris. A vivid reminder of this rival of Christianity 


8 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


may be seen to-day in the little temple of Isis at Pom- 
peli. Isis worship came from Egypt and was so popular 
in Rome by 58 B. C. that the consul Gabinius stopped 
the building of any more altars to this goddess. But 
no official decrees could prevent the devotion of the 
masses to this Egyptian faith. They had little images 
of Isis that remind us of the Christian Madonna and 
Child. The worship in the temples was most attractive 
to women, for it gave them the assurance of a happy 
future life by its teaching about Osiris who was dead 
but who is alive again. The priests gave their whole 
time to the service of these gods, and there was some- 
thing for the worshipper to do every day. They had a 
sort of passion play in which the death and resurrection 
of Osiris were pictured. It was enacted once a year in 
Rome, beginning October 28, and lasting seven days. 
Another feature was a kind of revival meeting on the 
street corners conducted by a priest of Isis, who car- 
ried the paraphernalia of worship on a little cart and 
rang a bell to call a crowd around him. 

The Mystery Religions met the emotional needs of 
many people whom the state religions of Rome failed 
to help. The best known Mystery was the Eleusinian 
which had its centre at Eleusis, near Athens. It had 
baptism, communion, and sacred festivals. The scene 
at the final act admitting converts to membership made 
a powerful appeal to the feelings. Paul referred to the © 
Mysteries several times in I Corinthians, Colossians, 
and Ephesians. 

In these three rivals of Christianity there was a 
great appeal to the common people in two ways. First, 
they brought the worshipper into personal, sympathetic 
relations with a god. This meant that there was an 
emotional element in the worship. Second, they as- 


THE WORLD INTO WHICH JESUS CAME 9 


sured the worshipper of immortality. Christianity sur- 
passed these powerful competitors and won the Roman 
Empire because it had a superior belief, a higher mo- 
rality, and conferred a greater joy. 


ont onanr wn 


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— 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


Give an example from national life of the difference that Jesus 
has made. Quote Gilbert. 


. In what ways had the Roman Empire prepared the way for 


the rapid spread of Christianity? 
Give the story of the Roman Eagle as an example of Herod’s 
treatment of the Jews. 


. Show how intimately the Roman government touched the 


life of the Jews in the matter of taxes. 
What was the cause of disease according to the people of 
Jesus’ day? 


. Give two or more examples of the moral bankruptcy of the 


social life. 
What three emotional religions had many followers in the 
Roman Empire? 


. Why{did Christianity win the empire over these competitors? 


Oral Discussion 


» Quote from memory Richard Watson Gilder’s verses about 


Christ. 


. How did Pilate happen to be governor of Judea in the time 


of Jesus? 


. How did the political subjection of his people to Rome affect 


the life of Jesus? 
Why was the luxury of Nero a public evil? 


. Describe the ancient notion of the world. 


Special Assignments 


. Draw an outline map of the Roman Empire and locate Rome, 


Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch. 


. Read Quo Vadis by Sienkiewicz for the light that it throws on 


social life in the Roman Empire. 


3. Write an account of the passion play of Osiris. See Breasted, 


History of Egypt. 


CHAPTER II 
THE RELIGION WHICH JESUS INHERITED 


1. A Striking Contrast. 


It has been said that the Jews got religion ready for 
the world, the Greeks prepared the language-vehicle in 
which it could safely be carried, and the Romans built 
the roads over which religion could be quickly sent to 
the limits of civilization. Jewish religion was the most 
important of the three gifts. From it sprang the world’s 
two most powerful faiths, Christianity and Moham- 
medanism. What gave Judaism such power and such 
endurance? 

One noticeable thing is the strange contrast between 
the Jews on the one hand and the Greeks and the 
Romans on the other. In Palestine life was serious 
and humble; in Rome life was gay and luxurious. 
Where Rome had grand temples and gorgeous religious 
processions, Palestine had unpretentious synagogues 
and a very lowly and simple religious life in home and 
village. It was this serious and humble religious life 
which Jesus inherited. 


2. Home and Synagogue. 
What an impression the customs of the Sabbath and 
the simple services in the rustic synagogue must have 
made upon Jesus’ mind! The Sabbath service was the 
only excitement of the week. Just before sunset Friday 
every household was in a hurry to finish the last things, 
10 


THE RELIGION WHICH JESUS INHERITED 11 


No work at all was permitted after sunset. Even the 
minister of the synagogue who, standing on his roof, 
announced the opening of the sacred day by blowing 
three times on a trumpet dared not profane the day by 
carrying the trumpet down from the roof. In the 
homes no fire could be built, no lamp moved, no insect 
killed, no fruit carried in the hand, no writing could be 
done or stitches taken. If a letter was to be sent, it 
must not be started as late as Wednesday or Thursday 
unless it was certain that it would reach its destination 
before the Sabbath. No one was to go about with false 
teeth lest they fall out and the wearer pick them up and 
-earry them in his hand, which would be sinful. If a 
hen laid an egg on the Sabbath, it was not lawful to 
eat it. 

For the great majority of Jews the temple in Jerusa- 
lem was too far away to serve as a real centre of worship. 
About the time of Judas Maccabeus there grew up in 
thecities and villages of Palestine many synagogues, 
which were places for the study of the Jewish Scrip- 
tures and for religious exhortation. They might be 
compared to our Sunday-schools, because the reading 
and study of the Scriptures had first place in them. 
The word ‘‘synagogue”’ means meeting-house, and one 
could be built wherever ten men agreed to support it. 
On the Sabbath it served for a Bible school and on 
week-days for a police court (Mark 13:9). 

By the time of Jesus the element of worship ‘had 
become a regular part of the synagogue activities, so 
that when the temple was destroyed in 70 A. D. the 
religious life of the Jews suffered no great loss, for by 
that time there was a synagogue in every village and 
many synagogues in the larger cities. One reason why 
there was little if any loss when the temple was de- 


12 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


stroyed was the fact that the service of worship in the 
temple alluded to in Ecclesiasticus 50: 16-26, but no- 
where fully described, was transferred to the synagogue. 

This love for the temple was early given to the 
synagogue, which was from the beginning not a dupli- 
cate of the temple in its purpose but parallel to it. It 
was a place where one could listen to the word of the 
Lord, where those who were able could read and ex- 
pound the Old Testament. ‘These lessons from the 
law were conducted not in a perfunctory manner as 
to-day, but intelligently, so that the law was understood 
by the people. The words were not only read, but ex- 
plained. Later on the Hebrew language was succeeded 
by the Aramaic, and for the people at large it was 
necessary to translate the reading into Aramaic. 

The need of translating and explaining the Scrip- 
tures led to the sermon. There was no regular preacher 
or priest connected with the synagogue. The service - 
could be conducted by anybody. Whoever chose could 
step forward and read; then anybody who sat in 
the audience and felt that the spirit moved him was 
permitted and encouraged to step forward and give 
his message, and all listened to him. In time the read- 
ing in the synagogue developed into a chant. Then the 
chant developed into a formal service to which the 
people did not pay much attention. | 


3- The Great Passover Feast. 

One of the memorable experiences of a Jewish boy 
was the celebration of the Passover. The Sacred Book 
had commanded: “Keep the passover unto Jehovah 
thy God; for in the month of Abib, Jehovah thy God 
brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. And thou 
shalt sacrifice the passover unto Jehovah thy God, 


THE RELIGION WHICH JESUS INHERITED 13 


of the flock and the herd, in the place which Jehovah 
shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.”” (Deu- 
teronomy 16:1, 2). With untiring devotion the Jews 
from all over Palestine went up to Jerusalem every 
spring for the chief feast of the year. While it was not 
quite like our country fairs in their hilarity, yet it was 
a time of pleasure and the holiday spirit was abroad. 

Boys would not go up to Jerusalem to the Great 
Feast until they had become “Sons of the Law,”’ that 
is, until they reached the age of twelve or thirteen and 
became responsible members of the congregation. The 
first time a boy went on the annual pilgrimage with his 
parents and neighbors he would join in the singing of the 
pilgrim hymn with deep feeling, “I was glad when they 
said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord” 
(Psalm 122). We can imagine the scene when the cara- 
van of worshippers from Nazareth made their first 
camp on the east of the Jordan near the valley road. 
Around the camp-fires stories were told and psalms 
sung. One of the older men would recall a journey 
many years ago when a pilgrim group was attacked at 
night by robbers. After such a story the younger boys 
would observe with big eyes the arrangements for the 
men to take their turns for keeping watch, for robberies 
were very frequent in Palestine in those days. As they 
sang their good-night hymn they would see practical 
meaning in the words: 


They that trust in Jehovah are as Mount Zion 
Which cannot be moved but abideth forever. 


As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
So Jehovah is round about his people (Psalm 125). 


As the pilgrims travelled down the valley road, snow- 
capped Mount Hermon rose behind them. Later they 


14 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


came to the Jabbok, where Jacob had wrestled all 
night with an angel and gained the name Israel, ‘‘ Prince 
of God.” They passed many historic scenes concerning 
which there was much talk among the Jews, and the 
boy Jesus would see the places which he afterward 
made famous: Jericho, Bethany, and the Mount of 
Olives. Such journeys amid the scenes of the romantic 
history of Israel were an important part of a Jewish 
boy’s education. 

Bethany was on the eastern slope of the Mount of 
Olives and was the home of the three young people who 
later became intimate friends of Jesus: Mary, Martha, 
and Lazarus. It may be that Jesus’ family stopped 
with them the last night of the journey. If so, it is 
possible that Jesus went to the crest of Olivet to catch 
his first glimpse of the Holy City. The view of the 
towers and domes of Jerusalem from Olivet at sunset 
is wonderful even to-day. Before Jesus lay the Brook 
Kidron and just this side of it an old garden of olive- 
trees which Jesus was to make forever sacred. Rising 
up beyond Kidron were the ramparts of Jerusalem and 
higher still the white walls and golden roof of the 
Temple of Herod. 

The next day within the walls the family or group of 
families would buy a paschal lamb, which had to be 
killed at the temple by the priests. Jesus’ first visit: to 
the cathedral of Jewish faith was at passover time when 
everything was to be seen at best advantage. The 
scene must have been impressive to one standing in the 
Court of the Men. The processions of priests in their 
white robes, the fires on the great altar, the music of 
the temple choirs, and the waving in the wind of the 
colored curtain that hung before the entrance combined 
to make a picture that would never be erased from a 


THE RELIGION WHICH JESUS INHERITED 15 


youthful mind. Above all was the high priest grand in 
appearance, 
‘“When he put on his glorious robes 
And clothed himself in perfect splendor, 


When he went up to the altar of majesty 
And made glorious the courts of the sanctuary.” 


From many nations thousands and thousands of 
pilgrims streamed into Palestine after extensive jour- 
neys by land and sea to offer sacrifice in this holy place. 
When these were added to the people from the home- 
land it made a picturesque host. One who had once 
mingled with that throng and heard the tones of the 
silver trumpets and the music of the chorus and the 
temple bands might be pardoned for saying he would 
like ‘‘toodwell in the house of the Lord forever.” 
Jesus had a real affection for the temple, for as a boy he 
is reported to have said that his parents should not 
have hunted for him elsewhere in the city, for they 
should have known that “‘I must be at my Father’s 
house.” Only four or five days before his crucifixion he 
drove the traders out, and quoted Scripture, saying, 
‘“‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all 
nations, but you have made it a den of thieves.” 


4. The Temple. 

In a little land like Palestine the national temple at 
Jerusalem would be the outstanding feature. When 
Jesus saw it for the first time he was twelve years old, 
that age when boys are most open to new impressions. 
Let us try to see this greatest of Jewish institutions as 
he saw it. 

It was a beautiful marble church on a marble plat- 
form about a thousand feet long and a thousand feet 
wide. The front of the temple, facing the east, was 


16 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


covered at least in part with plates of gold, The pil- 
grim coming from Galilee to the Passover Feast by 
the valley road would have a wonderful view of the 
front of the temple as he reached the brow of the Mount 
of Olives at the point where the city of Jerusalem 
came into sight. At this point Jesus, as he journeyed 
from Bethany on the Sunday of Passion week, wept 
over the city. Standing there one could look over the 
wall, forty-three feet high, which surrounded the three 
temple courts and see the costly gate of Corinthian 
bronze, called the “Gate Beautiful,’ which opened 
from the Court of the Women into the Court of Israel. 

Inside the gate was the temple with space around it. 
That part of this space which was in front of the 
temple was called the Court of the Men. To the right 
as you entered was the great altar of sacrifice. Directly 
in front was the temple, one hundred and twenty feet 
long and ninety feet wide with a facade rising one hun- 
dred and twenty feet into the air, and so wide that it 
extended thirty feet beyond the front on each side. 

The Gospel of Luke tells an interesting story about 
Christ talking with the rabbis. This incident took 
place, no doubt, as Hofmann in his Christ and the 
Doctors pictures it, in one of the porches formed by 
the lofty marble columns on the great marble platform. 
So not only the beauty of the building and the worship 
influenced Jesus, but also the teachings of the doctors 
who lectured in its courts. 


5. Religious Parties that Influenced Jesus’ Career. 
A great deal is said in the Gospels about the Pharisees 
and the Sadducees. They were the two most powerful 
parties in Palestine; the first religious and often devo- 
tional, the second political and worldly. The scribes 


THE RELIGION WHICH JESUS INHERITED 17 


were the scholars and teachers among the Pharisees, 
and it was they who opposed Jesus from the first. They 
believed that God’s inspiration did not cease with the 
written law in the Old Testament, but continued in 
their oral explanations of the written law. Their 
numerous additions to the Law of Moses were just as 
binding on men as the written law. This was what 
started the trouble between them and Jesus. 

The Pharisees were the descendants of those who had 
opposed the Greek influence in Palestine in the time of 
the Maccabees. They stood for literal belief in the 
religion of their fathers, in the future life, and an unseen 
world full of spirits, good and bad. 

The Sadducees were successors of those who had fa- 
vored the foreign and liberal ideas in the time of the 
Maccabees. They did not believe in adding to the Law 
of Moses, rejected the belief in immortality and an 
unseen world of spirits. Most of the wealthy Jews 
were Sadducees because that party favored the Roman 
government, which helped maintain good business con- 
ditions. 

The Herodians were evidently members of a small 
party of royalists that favored the family of Herod. 
The Zealots were extremists who eagerly sought occa- 
sion to throw off the Roman control of the Jews by 
violent action. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. What was the most noticeable difference between the life of 
the Jews and the Romans? 

2. Describe the scene in Jesus’ home and neighborhood on a 
Friday afternoon as sunset approached. 

8. How would the journey to Jerusalem to attend the Passover 
affect a boy’s religious life? 


18 


oe FP BO Ne 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


. What hymns would be sung; what stories told? ; 
. Why is Jesus’ boyhood visit to Bethany so full of suggestions 


for us? 
What could Jesus see of Jerusalem at his first glimpse of it 
from the top of the Mount of Olives? 


. As Jesus stood in the Court of the Men during the Passover 


what memorable things did he see? 


. Give several reasons why Jesus’ religious life would be influ- 


enced by the temple. 


Oral Discussion 


. Compare the preparation for Christianity made by the Jews, 


Greeks, and Romans. 


. One difference between the temple and the synagogue. — 
. At what age did a boy become a member of the Congregation 


of the synagogue? 


. What event did the Passover celebrate? Is the Passover now 


observed ? 


. What was the difference between the Pharisees and the 


Sadducees? 


Special Assignments 


. The origin of the synagogue. See Edersheim 1: 431-434. 
. Visit an orthodox synagogue and describe the formal character 


of the service. 


. Study Hofmann’s Christ and the Doctors and describe the 


expression on the face of each person in the picture. 


. Write a description of Psalms 120-134 as hymns for the an- 


nual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 


. Read Bulwer Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii for a better 


understanding of religious conditions in the first Christian 
century. 


Part 2 
OPENING EVENTS 


CHAPTER III 


THE HERALD OF THE NEW ERA 
Noe! Mark 1: 1-8. 


1. A Strange Prophet. 


One day there appeared by the River Jordan a 
hermit from the barren regions of Judea preaching a 
startling message. He declared that the great day fore- 
told by the prophets had come at last and that every- 
thing was to be changed. People crowded about him, 
attracted both by his unusual appearance and by his 
eloquence. His powerful young figure was clothed in 
the skins of wild beasts, he was brown and rugged and 
his hair and beard were uncut. He ate only wild honey 
and locusts. 

The people were excited because he reminded them 
of the Messiah which the Old Testament had predicted. 
They expected a bold, intense leader who would over- 
throw the government and place the Jews in power. 
They asked John if he was the Messiah. He said that 
he was not, but that he had come to help them prepare 
for the coming of that one. 

“What then shall we do?” the people asked. 

And he answered: ‘‘The man who has two shirts 
must share with those who have none,” 

19 


20 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


“‘How does this apply to me?” asked one who was a 
tax-collector. 

“Stop overcharging the poor. Ask a fair amount of 
taxes.” 

A soldier was interested and John turned to him: 
“Instead of trumping up false charges for purposes of 
blackmail be satisfied with the wages from the govern- 
ment.” 


2. John Represented the Best in Old Testament 
Religion. | 
John will always be regarded as an important his- 
torical character because he stands in the gap between 
the Old Testament and the New. Jesus is reported as 
having given the following estimate of John: “ Among 
them that are born of women there is none greater 
than John” (Luke 7:28). His greatness largely con- 
sisted in his work of transferring to Christianity the 
essential elements of Jewish religion. In the last 
chapter of our Old Testament we read: ‘Behold I 
will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the great and 
terrible day of Jehovah come” (Malachi 4:5). In the 
first paragraph in the Gospels (Mark 1: 4) we read that 
“John came who baptized in the wilderness and 
preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of 
sins.” He brought over from the prophetic religion 
five things: God, lofty morals, demand for repentance, 
social justice, and the exalted ideal of the home life. 


3. His Home and Boyhood. 

Luke reports that John’s father Zechariah was a 
priest and his mother Elizabeth was a very devout 
woman. They lived in a quiet place in southern Judea, 
for the father’s duties in the temple occupied only two 


THE HERALD OF THE NEW ERA 21 


or three days a week. The birth of John was celebrated 
in a hymn, the Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79), now one of 
the greatest hymns of the Christian church. 

And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, 
For you will go before the Lord to make his way ready, 


Bringing his people the way of salvation 
Through the forgiveness of their sins. 


An element of romance is added to the account by the 
story of the visit of Mary to Elizabeth shortly before 
the births of Jesus and John. 

Like the childhood of the Master, John’s early days 
are unrecorded save for the report in Luke that ‘‘the 
child grew and waxed strong in spirit.”” In almost the 
same words the growth of Jesus is described (compare 
Luke 1:80 and 2:40). Our imagination can picture 
him as a boy among the hills overlooking the Dead Sea. 
There is a charm in the barren steeps and long waste 
stretches, a deathly stillness of the great waters without 
life which would incline the youth to meditation. In 
a similar way the deserts of Egypt moved the monks of 
the Christian church, like Saint Anthony, to think of 
God and devote their lives to his service. John read 
the scrolls of the Prophets and under the bright stars 
of the oriental night he thought over the evils of the 
great cities of his time, until it seemed to him that the 
time had come that the prophet Malachi foretold when 
a revenger would come to condemn the people (Mal- 
achi 3:1). The conviction grew that he ought to go 
to the people of his land and preach ‘‘repentance for 
the remission of sin.” 


4. Excitement concerning the Messiah in John’s Day. 


John said: “There cometh one after me that is might- 
ier than I. ... He shall baptize you with the Holy 


2 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Spirit.”” No explanation was given, for every one who 
attended a synagogue would know that it meant the 
Messiah. All Jews were familiar with the prophecy 
that King David’s throne should be established for- 
ever (II Samuel 7: 16) and that in the future “shall the 
God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall never be 
destroyed”? (Daniel 2:44). Every child in Palestine 
had been taught the glowing words of Isaiah, ‘His 
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty 
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the in- 
crease of his government and of peace there shall be 
no end” (Isaiah 9:6, 7). To the poor and oppressed 
this meant that the Messiah would “have dominion 
from sea to sea,’’ and that he would change human so- 
ciety so that justice and happiness would be enjoyed 
by those who had been downtrodden (Psalm 72: 4-8). 
The Jewish ‘‘idea of the Kingdom of God was no Greek 
sweet dream of a past golden age, but an intoxicating 
belief in a new state in which righteousness was to 
reign”? (Mathews, Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
ment). | 

While John was a boy the following poem appeared 
in Palestine: 

And then his kingdom will appear throughout all his creation, 


And then Satan will be no more, 
And sorrow will depart with him. 


For the Heavenly One will arise from his royal throne, 
And he will go forth from his holy habitation 
And his wrath will burn on account of his sons. 


For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone, 
And he will appear to punish the Gentiles, 
And he will destroy all their idols. 
(Assumption of Moses 10: 1, 3, 7.) 


This was written by a Pharisee who believed in the 
direct intervention of God. God would by a miracle 


THE HERALD OF THE NEW ERA 23 


overthrow the Roman government and establish the 
Messianic Kingdom. When John began to preach there 
was a party called Zealots that took a different view 
from that of the Pharisees. They held that a military 
revolution was necessary in order to establish the 
Messianic Age. In the end the Zealots won the majority 
of the people and the result was that Rome sent an 
army and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A. D. 

While the revolutionists in the north of Palestine 
were urging the Jews to rebel against Rome, John was 
preaching repentance to the people in the south. He 
taught that the Messiah would not come until a religious 
and moral preparation had been made. In this he was 
a true forerunner of Jesus, for Jesus took this religious 
attitude rather than the political. From time to time 
pressure was brought to bear upon him to become a 
political leader, lead his people to victory against Rome, 
and end slavery, poverty, and the wicked manners and 
customs, including the public games so harmful to the 
morals of the Jewish youth. Jesus, as well as many of 
the people, knew that the senators at Rome and the 
royal court rolled in the lap of luxury yet nothing was 
done to relieve the burdens in Palestine. Spiritual life 
was his interest. It was not until late in his public 
career that Jesus admitted that he was the Messiah in 
any sense, and when he did acknowledge Peter’s great 
confession (Matthew 16), he immediately added the 
statement (verse 21) that he was the kind of a Messiah 
that would have to die to win. The gaining of this new 
insight concerning the meaning of the Kingdom of God 
-had cost Jesus many a struggle from the time of his 
temptation in the wilderness until that historic scene 
at Czsarea Philippi. His solution of the problem, 
hinted at in Isaiah 538, “became the most universal 


24 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


achievement in the annals of mankind” (Simkhovitch, 
Toward an Understanding of Jesus). Jesus perceived 
that the Kingdom could only be within the souls of 
men. Israel could be left free to develop that spiritual 
life, so well exemplified in the life of Jeremiah, only by 
humility and non-resistance. On the basis of this idea 
Jesus developed some fundamental truths that to-day 
reveal ‘his intellectual grandeur and the purity and 
unswerving consistency”? of his thinking. Because 
they could not understand him they put him to death, 
but his death in the end won the world, or bids fair to 
win the world, to his view. It is this new insight of 
Jesus into religion that gives the Sermon on the Mount 
its great influence in the modern world; in his parables 
he put his new ideas in the form of pictures; combined, 
they constitute a religious message that is irresistible. 


5. Two Chief Contributions of John to Religion. 


He recalled his people to the moral standards of the 
great prophets of Israel: Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. 
When his nation was looking for miraculous help out 
of all their difficulties he recalled them to the eternal 
truths which must underlie every permanent life, na- 
tional or individual, ‘‘What doth the Lord require of 
thee but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly 
with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). 

John’s second contribution was a new meaning for 
baptism. Baptism was a common custom not only 
among the Jews but throughout the world. Other re- 
ligions had already used it as a sign of spiritual cleans- 
ing. What John said was that they could not be bap- 
tized until they had repented. It became the symbol 
of purity of soul, of a new birth in a certain sense. 
Josephus wrote that John employed baptism for puri- 


THE HERALD OF THE NEW ERA 25 


fying both body and soul. This shows that John held 
that an essential condition for the coming of the Mes- 
siah was individual repentance and confession. On the 
other hand, the prophets regarded national and social 
repentance as the essential principle (Klausner, Jesus 
of Nazareth, 246, 247). This is our Christian belief and 
we owe it to John. 

While John was like Jesus in much of histeaching, yet 
his neglect ofthe principle of love left much to be 
desired. Longfellow’s lines well represent the difference: 


‘fA voice by Jordan’s shore, 
A summons stern and clear: 
Repent, be just, and sin no more 
God’s judgment draweth near! 


A voice by Galilee, 

A holier voice I hear: 

Love God, thy neighbor love! for see, 
God’s mercy draweth near.” 


6. The Tragic Ending of John’s Life. 


Soon after Jesus appeared John was arrested for con- 
demning Herod, who had married Herodias, his brother’s 
wife. For many months he was in prison in the castle 
of the king which was nearest the scene of his preach- 
ing, the fortress of Macherus. From his dungeon he 
sent messengers to inquire whether Jesus was really 
the expected Messiah. He must have wondered why 
some miraculous aid had not freed him. But Jesus 
knew that it was best for the kingdom that political 
miracles should not be worked, for that would lead to 
violence and political revolution. Some time later, ac- 
cording to Mark 6:14-29, at a banquet, Salome, 
daughter of the queen Herodias, danced before the 
king. To reward her he asked what gift would please 
her most. After consulting her mother she replied, 


26 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


“the head of John the Baptist.” And the king com- 
manded a soldier of his guard and he brought the head 
of John on a platter, and gave it to the damsel; and 
the damsel gave it to her mother. 


7. The Humility of John. 


Phillips Brooks once defined humility as the ability 
to see yourself as you are, not thinking too little of your 
worth, or too much. That is a valuable quality. One 
who underestimates himself fails to win a right estimate 
from others; one who thinks too much of himself makes 
many enemies and creates unnecessary opposition. 
John was in a position to claim an office that belonged 
to a greater man, but he was content to fulfil his own 
mission (Luke 3:15-17; John 1:19-23). He was 
willing to be a ‘‘voice”’ heralding the Master who was 
to follow. This was one reason why Jesus called him 
great (Luke 7: 28). 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. Name two or more unusual things in the appearance of John. 
. What five good teachings did John bring over from the old 
prophetic religion? 

. How was John impressed by the surroundings of his boyhood? 
: Pee Old Testament passages was the messianic hope 
ase 

Name four elements of that hope. 

. Give three different views of the way in which the Messianic 
Age would be introduced. 

. Show that John was a true forerunner of Jesus. 

John’s two chief contributions to religion. 

. What was the tragic finish of John’s career? 

. Whatis humility? Luke 3: 4-6. 


Oral Discussion 


SOON OO PW Ne 


— 


1. Show that John applied social tests to religion. 
2. What in John’s preaching reminded the people of Elijah? 


THE HERALD OF THE NEW ERA 27 


3. What shows that books written in the time of John the 
Baptist advocated the messianic hope? 

4. What was Jesus’ solution of the problem concerning the kind 
of a Messiah he should be? 


Special Assignments 


. Read the Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79) and make a list of the 
ideas contained in it. 

. In what respects is Del Sarto’s painting of the boy, John the 
Baptist, too idealistic? See Bailey, Art Studies in the Life 
of Christ, 67. 

- Reasons for thinking that John did not have any connection 
with the sect called Essenes. See Edersheim, vol. I, 325, 
326. 

. Select passages from the Gospels to show that the people of 
Judea were expecting the Messiah. 


nS -& 


oO 


aN 


Cuaptrer IV 


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 


Mark 1:9-11; Matthew 3:13-17; Luke 3:21, 22. 
1. A Sensation in Nazareth. 

When the news of John’s revival in Judea reached 
Nazareth it created a mild sensation. The two chief 
religious factions were affected in different ways. On 
the one hand there were the Zealots who were eager 
for a leader to appear who would stir up a rebellion 
against the Roman government. When they heard 
of the great crowd that thronged about John the Bap- 
tist they had hopes that he might be such a leader, but 
his stern preaching of moral reform quenched their 
hopes. 

On the other hand there were the “meek of the land” 
who were opposed to violence, although they also 
suffered at the hands of the Roman government. John’s 
preaching meant to them the possibility of a general 
reform among the Jews which would prepare the way 
for the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
They believed that God would not fulfil his great prom- 
ises of that good day coming until all the people had 
repented of their sins. 


2. <A Challenge to Jesus. 


We know from what Jesus said later that he belonged 
to the group called the ‘‘meek of the land.’ We cannot 
help believing that many others in Nazareth like Jesus’ 

28 


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 29 


mother, shared with Jesus his opposition to violence 
and war in dealing with the government to which they 
paid tribute. For more than a dozen years Jesus had 
been an active citizen of his little city, and doubtless 
had been very prominent in the synagogue. He must 
have been the centre of a large group of people who 
were intelligent because they had studied the prophets, 
and who with-genuine piety awaited the fulfilment of 
God’s promises to Israel. To this group and especially 
to Jesus the message of John came as a great challenge. 

They perceived that John’s demand for social justice 
and for repentance was in line with the teachings of 
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. To Jesus the appeal 
of John may have been personal, for in his heart he may 
have held secretly the hope that he might do something 
toward the fulfilment of those glorious ideals which 
the prophets had held forth. When it was reported to 
Jesus that John’s great theme was ‘‘ Repent, for the 
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” he knew that the time 
had come for him to make the great decision. 

His whole life had been a preparation for his mission. 
The stories of his birth (Luke, chapter 2) may show that 
his mother knew from the beginning that the babe was 
to become a great religious leader. While the birth of 
a child in any good home is an occasion for rejoicing 
and for years afterward awakens tender memories, yet 
no other little boy had such beautiful pictures painted 
or songs sung in his honor. Correggio’s Holy Night and 
Phillips Brooks’ O Little Town of Bethlehem represent 
truly the deeper meanings of his coming. 


“Yet in thy dark streets shineth 
The everlasting light; 
The hopes and fears of all the years 
Are met in thee to-night.” 


30 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


The account of his visit to the temple at the age of 
twelve is the only word that breaks the silence of the 
next thirty years in Nazareth. That reveals a thought- 
ful, enthusiastic young Jew to whom the temple at 
Jerusalem was the true house of God. His reading and 
his lessons in the synagogue had raised many questions 
in his mind. Hofmann’s Christ and the Doctors is not 
untrue to the main facts in the case. One who, like 
Jesus, was to revolutionize the world of thought must 
have had, even at an early age, ideas that would startle 
the staid old doctors in the porches of the temple. 
Their faces, as Hofmann’s picture shows, furnish evi- 


dence enough that they had never dealt with a boy - 


like this. 

“Is not this the carpenter?” the question asked by 
Jesus’ neighbors after his address in the synagogue at 
Nazareth (Mark 6:3), makes it clear that Jesus had 
lived among them as a humble workman without mak- 
ing any claim of superiority. Tissot’s picture of the 
youth Jesus doing errands for Joseph, carrying a heavy 
board through a street in Nazareth, suggests the whole 
story of his simple life among the common people. 


By his intimate association through many years with — 


these lowly folk he early learned to believe in the worth 
of every human soul. ‘‘He saw in the publican whom 
all men shunned the germ of an honest life. He saw in 
the fallen woman, whom the proud Pharisee thought 
had defiled his house, a spark of the divine love. He 
believed in it, and it was quickened into a holy flame. 
In the most ignorant and lost he saw the children of 
his Father, the citizens of heaven. As the artist’s shap- 
ing imagination beholds within the unhewn block of 
moss-stained marble the form and loveliness of the 
statue he has already created, and will now embody, 


i —— - 


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 3l 


so Christ saw in the most degraded soul a ‘temple of 
the Holy Ghost’ with capacities for infinite progress, 
with powers for noble work, with possibilities for perfect 
holiness”? (Brooke, Sermons). 

The country about Nazareth was in its educational 
influence historically for a Jewish boy much what the 
country about Boston is for an American boy. If the 
village teacher was a man of any imagination he must 
have spent afternoons of rare interest with his school- 
boys on the Nazareth hilltops. “You cannot see from 
Nazareth the surrounding country, for Nazareth rests 
in a basin among hills; but the moment you climb to 
the edge of this basin, which is everywhere within the 
limit of the village boys’ playground, what a view you 
have! Esdraelon lies before you with its twenty battle- 
fields—the scenes of Barak’s and Gideon’s victories, 
the scenes of Saul’s and of Josiah’s defeats, the scenes 
of the struggles for freedom in the glorious days of the 
Maccabees. There is Naboth’s vineyard and the place 
of Jehu’s revenge upon Jezebel; there Shunem and the 
house of Elisha; there Carmel and the place of Elijah’s 
sacrifice. To the east the Valley of Jordan with the 
long range of Gilead; to the west the radiance of the 
Great Sea, with the ships of Tarshish and the promise 
of the Isles. You see thirty miles in three directions. 
It is a map of Old Testament history. But equally full 
and rich was the present life on which the eyes of the 
boy Jesus looked out. ... For all the rumor of the 
empire entered Palestine close to Nazareth—the news 
from Rome about the emperor’s health, about the 
changing influence of the great statesmen, about the 
prospects at court of Herod, or of the Jews; about 
Ceesar’s last order concerning the tribute, or whether 
the policy of the procurator would be sustained... . 


32 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


A vision of all the kingdoms of the world was as possi- 
ble from this village as from the mount of temptation” 
(George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy 
Land, pp. 433, 435.) 


3. Jesus Leaves Home. 


As the oldest son of-a widowed mother Jesus had 
borne the burden of supporting the large family. But 
the time had now come when he could leave home be- 
cause his brothers and sisters were old enough to care 
for themselves. The ‘Gospel to the Hebrews” states 
that his mother and brothers urged him to go and see 
John the Baptist. Whether that is true or not we may 
readily believe that his mother understood something 
of his ambition to become a religious leader. 

We may imagine that Mary waked very early on 
that morning when Jesus was to start for Judea. She 
would go up that stairway outside the house which led 
to the roof and wake Jesus and help him prepare for 
the journey. It may be that his brothers were opposed 
to his going away, for later we read that they did not 
accept him as the Messiah. But with his mother’s 
approval he broke the ties which, through his youth 
and young manhood, had bound him to his native city, 
and thus started on his new career of sacrifice and 
suffering which ended on the cross. 


4. Jesus Meets John. 


John’s rally call, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand,” which many travellers had reported to Jesus, 
made a strong appeal to him because of his experiences 
in Nazareth. Asa boy in the synagogue he had accepted 
his parents’ faith without question, but as the years 
went by he felt some objection to the useless forms in 


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 33 


their worship. He realized that he had a special mis- 
sion and this report of John’s preaching of a new mes- 
sage aroused him to action. With keen anticipations he 
walked down the valley road through Bethshan across 
the Jordan and along the east bank of the river toward 
Jericho. Had Jesus seen John before this time? At 
any rate he had not been with him much for many years 
and he was anxious to talk with him. He wondered 
whether John favored the Zealots or the spiritual view 
of the coming kingdom, which Jesus himself had come 
to believe. 

He found John baptizing converts on the east bank 
of the Jordan not far from Jericho. The new preacher 
had gained the name Baptist because he spent a large 
part of his time in baptizing his converts and explaining 
the significance of the ceremony. Josephus, in agree- 
ment with the Gospels, bears clear testimony to the 
fact that there was a new element in John’s baptism. 
While it was “‘a purification of the body,” yet that could 
not be received until after ‘‘the soul was already puri- 
fied by righteousness.”’ Before that time ceremonial 
washings had been common among the Jews but they 
had no connection with repentance or personal morality. 

This new element appealed to Jesus, and we may 
imagine that he spent the night with John and talked 
over this new idea of the Kingdom and found that John 
rang true to the prophets, law, and psalms which Jesus 
knew so well. And one would like to have been there 
to hear that conversation. In such a spirit John and 
Charles Wesley and their little group of Oxford friends 
prayed together, and in our own country, at Williams 
College, Judson and Mills at the haystack meeting 
lighted fires of spiritual fervor that swept over the 
world. 


34 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


5. The Scene of the Baptism. 


Frank Du Mond’s The Baptism of Christ brings many 
elements of the scene beautifully before us. The Jordan 
with its white lilies at Jesus’ feet, the attitude of listen- 
ing to God’s voice, the little groups of oriental people 
on the shore, John’s emotion expressed in his poise and 
attitude, all help to visualize this beautiful scene, al- 
though the face of the Christ, as always, falls far below 
the ideal. 

When Jesus came up out of the water, he had a new 
sense of the overshadowing presence of God. Mark 
describes this as “the Spirit like a dove descending 
upon him.” For many centuries the word “dove” 
among the Jews stood for gentleness and brooding love. 
Milton, in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, uses it in 
this sense of brooding love. Then Jesus heard the voice 
saying, “Thou art my beloved Son.”? This meant to 
him that he was to go on his mission with the aid of 
the Father. Luke adds that the vision came to him 
while in prayer. This was the most decisive event in 
the life of Jesus. 


6. Why Jesus Observed This Form. 


The Gospel of Matthew reports that John objected 
to baptizing Jesus, saying that he had more need of being 
baptized of him. Jesus answered: “Let it to be ‘so 
now, for it is right that we observe all necessary forms 
in our religious life.”’ He acknowledged the value of 
the old religion by letting the last of its prophets baptize 
him; by the same act he started a new religion, recog- 
nizing himself as the central point of history. By ob- 
serving this ceremony he declared that he was to live 
on the human plane, tempted in all points like others, 
a sharer in all earth’s sorrows and Joys, its infirmities 
and its duties. 


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 35 


This does not imply that he was sinful, but that he 
subjected himself to the laws of human nature. He 
was entering on a new sphere of action; and at that 
time baptism wasvregarded as the best method of initi- 
ation. Submission to such a form no more implies as 
some one has said ‘‘a consciousness of sin in Christ, 
than the taking of the oath of allegiance on entering 
upon an official post implies in an Englishman’s heart 
disloyalty to his sovereign.” 

Even if the forms are hard for us they have as im- 
portant a function in our lives as the bitter rind has for 
the orange. We could not have the delicious juice if 
there were no rind. So the custom of touching one’s 
cap or lifting the hat to a lady helps preserve courtesy 
and actually develops the element of courtesy in the 
mind. A great student of psychology once said, ‘‘ There 
is no impression without expression.’”’? Unless we put 
into words our thought we do not really grasp what we 
are vaguely thinking of. When a boy in school says, 
“T know but I cannot say it,” he really does not know. 
If one thinks that he is religious at heart but does not 
reveal his religious interest by any outward expression 
he is probably deceiving himself. So Jesus gave an 
example of permanent value when he offered himself 
for baptism. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. Two interpretations of John’s message by different persons 
in Nazareth. 

2. Who were the “‘meek of the land’’? 

3. What desire in Jesus’ heart was strengthened by the appeal 
of John? 

4. What preparation for his mission had the silent years in 
Nazareth imparted to Jesus? 

5. What responsibility may he, as the oldest son of Mary, have 
felt toward his home and mother? 


oF WO Ne 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


. What would such congenial spirits as Jesus and John talk 


about when they met at the Jordan? 


. What new element in John’s explanation of baptism especially 


appealed to Jesus? 


. Describe the baptism of Jesus. 
. Why did Jesus submit to baptism? 
. What has the observance of forms to do with the substance 


of religion? 
Oral Discussion 


. How many brothers and sisters did Jesus have? Matthew 


13: 55, 56. 
Had Jesus ever seen John the Baptist before the time of his 
baptism ? 


. Point out on the map the road from Nazareth to the scene 


of the baptism. 


. Was Jesus’ baptism a confession of sin on his part? 
. Give some examples of the value of conforming to the cere- 


monies of the church. 


Special Assignments 


. What do we know of Jesus’ life before he responded to the 


call of John? Study Correggio’s Holy Night, Hofmann’s 
Christ and the Doctors, and Tissot’s Youth of Jesus and 
write a brief statement of their suggestions concerning the 
youth of Jesus. 


. The significance of the ‘‘Dove” in the baptismal scene. 


Barton’s Jesus of Nazareth, 113, 114. 


. Representations of Christ’s baptism in the Catacombs at 


Rome. 


CHAPTER V 


THE TEMPTATION 
Mark 1:12, 13; Matthew 4: 1-11; Luke 4: 1-13. 


1. Temptation Follows Exaltation of Spirit. 


There is a certain rhythm in our lives as in music, 
according to which moments of great joy are followed 
by periods of depression. Jesus’ baptism was the high 
mark in his experience thus far. He felt sure of his 
great mission and of his acceptance with the Father in 
heaven. Had not the Father said: ‘Thou art my be- 
loved Son; in thee I am well pleased?”’ Ecstatic joy, 
the highest consciousness of inspiration, carried him to 
the mountain-tops of vision. Everything seemed 
possible. He might be able quickly to win all mankind. 
to his Father’s allegiance. Thus many great prophets 
and social reformers have felt, but their enthusiasm 
was too great for wise action, and their joy too fine to 
battle with the coarse world. Mohammed’s lofty vi- 
sions on Mount Hira were followed by temptations of 
the devil in the cave. 

Jesus shared this human experience. From the moun- 
tain-top of our vision we go into the valley of tempta- 
tion. It is a period of silence, loneliness, and suffering. 
The obstacles in the way of realizing our hopes loom 
gigantic before us. It may be, as Tennyson says, that 
Providence takes this way of removing the thoughts 
of selfish gain from our sense of mission. 

“Tove took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords 
with might 


Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out 
of sight.” 


37 


38 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


2. The Place of the Temptation. 


From the ford of the Jordan, six miles east of Jericho, 
where the baptism took place, Jesus walked alone into 
the rough barren region to a hill now called Quarantana 
(meaning forty days), the last peak of a western ridge, 
ending in a sheer precipice. “No sign of life was visible 
except the birds of the desert, and now and then one 
of its sly, wild animals. A few stray thrushes uttered 
melancholy notes. A black grackle with yellow wings 
flew over the traveller’s head and rose, vanishing. Vul- 
tures circled low in grim spots about the landscape. 
An unseen fox, or desert partridge, waiting for the dark, 
slipped stealthily among the rocks” (Phelps, Story of 
Jesus Christ). | 

The tourist standing on the same spot to-day may 
see what Jesus saw. In front was a stretch of low marsh- 
land with the Jordan in the distance winding through 
it. A little to the south was the Dead Sea, and beyond 
it rose the purple hills of Moab with lonely Mount 
Nebo in plain view, that sacred spot where Moses died 
after his solitary vigil. As night came on Jesus de- 
scended the side of the hill in the midst of the caves and 
gorges and sat at the entrance of one of the caves. He 
had eaten nothing that day but he felt no hunger, 
for a great depression was upon him. Doubt crept into 
his mind. Had he really been called? How could, he 
accomplish the great task? Days and nights went by 
as he pondered over the issues involved. 

Cornicelius, in his picture, Christ Tempted by Satan, is 
probably correct in making the temptation a mental 
experience. It is hardly conceivable that Jesus would 
be influenced in the least by the horrible presence of a 
Satan in person. The struggle was in his mind, as it 
was in the case of Mohammed and as it is in our own 


THE TEMPTATION 39 


temptations. In one thing the artist was in error, for 
the crown in the picture is out of character. Jesus had 
decided long before the baptism that the messianic 
idea which called for a king was untrue. 


3. The Story of the Three Temptations. 


The first temptation consisted in the suggestion that 
as a Son of God he should not be obliged to suffer 
hunger. Why should he not by miracle change one of 
those round stones which reminded him of a loaf of 
bread and thus be able to have food there in that desert 
place? Quickly there came to his mind these words 
(that God spoke to Moses concerning his trial for forty 
years in the wilderness), God “‘suffered thee to hunger 

. and fed thee with manna that he might make thee 
know that man doth not live by bread alone but by 
everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of Je- 
hovah doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:3). These 
meant to Jesus that he should not depend on God for 
special favors. In the new religion Jews were not to 
have advantage over Gentiles. To be a son of Abraham 
would not enable a man to have favors over others. 
A Christian must accept whatever God gives him, as 
Moses accepted the mysterious manna in the wilder- 
ness. 

Moreover, Christianity, as Jesus had thought it out 
during these forty days, was to be different from the 
Old Testament religion. It was to be inner and not 
external, a thing of the soul and not of outward pros- 
perity or adversity. The new religion was to stand in 
sharp contrast with the Jewish faith in the matter of 
miracles. The Old Testament was a history of miracu- 
lous interventions in behalf of Israel. Not so, the 
history of Christianity: ‘It sees the love of God in 


40 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


ordinary, every-day things, such as birds, flowers, grass, 
common people, children, ordinary fathers, ordinary 
neighbors.” Jesus’ religion stood opposed to that of 
John the Baptist at three points: exclusiveness, ex- 
ternality, and miraculous intervention. 

The second temptation as reported in Matthew is 
a more striking example of intervention by miracle. 
As the days in the wilderness went by Jesus felt that 
he was struggling against an evil suggestion which was 
prompting him. The 91st Psalm describes angels hold- 
ing up a falling man: 


For he will give his angels charge over thee, 
To keep thee in all thy ways; 

They shall bear thee up in their hands, 
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 


The suggestion was that as God’s chosen leader he 
might gain a large following by leaping from the temple 
roof. At certain times of the year thousands of people 
would be standing on the pavements below waiting 
for the temple trumpet to sound the signal for prayer. 
If at such a time he should unexpectedly appear on 
some lofty part of the temple and leap off and be held 
in the air by angels he would be meeting a popular 
expectation aroused by a saying in the prophecy- of 
Malachi, “The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly 
come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1). But to Jesus’ 
mind came another saying of Deuteronomy, “Thou 
shalt not put to the proof Jehovah thy God” (6: 16), 
thus doubting his presence unless proved by some mira- 
cle. So this is similar to the first temptation except 
that it was to be a public, spectacular miracle. 

The third temptation came upon Jesus in connection 
with the belief in the Kingdom of God which he had 


THE TEMPTATION 41 


inherited from his fathers. Rome now ruled the world, 
but shortly, by divine aid, might not the Jews be given | 
the supreme power? If Jesus would only compromise 
with his conscience and be willing to resort to violence, 
just once, God would make his people rulers of the 
world and the Kingdom of Heaven would at once be 
established. ‘‘In some moment of ecstatic vision all 
the golden glory of royalty throughout the world 
passed before him. His profound desire was to secure 
all this for Jehovah, to let the everlasting glory of 
God’s radiant heavens into the royal courts and to 
transform their millions of subjects into obedient sons 
of the Living God” (Bosworth, The Life and Teaching 
of Jesus, p. 78). Again the words of God to Moses 
flashed into the mind of Jesus, ‘‘Thou shalt fear 
Jehovah thy God; and him shalt thou serve” (Deu- 
teronomy 6:13). Obey the God of right and shun every 
resort to wrong. So the three temptations centre 
around the same subject, the character of the religion 
which Jesus is to establish. Long afterward in report- 
ing this experience to his disciples Jesus explained, in 
the terms of turning a stone to bread, leaping from a 
pinnacle, and the vision of the world from a mountain, 
that he was utterly opposed to basing his religion on 
favoritism for any people, or on external display. 


4. How Jesus Differed from John. 


Jesus did not fall in line with John’s idea about the 
Messiah. Both believed in the necessity for moral im- 
provement, but John saw it as a preparation for the 
coming of the Messiah and a great catastrophe which 
should destroy Israel’s national enemies. He evidently 
shared the common view of the method of inaugurating 
the Kingdom of God. “Even now is the axe laid unto 


42 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


the root of the trees . . . the chaff he will burn up 
with unquenchable fire.” | 
Jesus originated a different kind of religion. In the 
Sermon on the Mount and in his parables he gave a new 
vision of the possibilities of human life. The natural 
hatred of enemies and the miraculous exaltation of 
Israel to the lordship of the world disappears and uni- 
versal love takes its place. ‘Until now the Kingdom 
of God suffereth violence, and men of violence take it 
by force,” Jesus said, referring, perhaps, to the Zealots, 
who proposed to start a war against the Romans in 
order to establish the Kingdom. But Jesus was a 
teacher of love and showed by humanity, purity, non- 
resistance, peace-making, that God’s kingdom would 
gradually fill the earth. Christianity was to be differ- 
ent from Judaism. Jesus was no mere follower of 
John; he was the founder of a new system. That he 
realized this is shown clearly by his parables of the 
old and new garments and the new wine in the old wine- 
skins (Mark 2: 21, 22). Again, John was a severe spirit, 
a hermit, out of sympathy with social life; Jesus was 
kindly and sympathetic. He liked to be with people. 
He wore no weird dress and did not stay in the wilder- 
ness, but mingled freely with the common people in 
their homes and synagogues. The temptation story 
shows that he thought of religion as an inner experience, 
a development of a better social order not by miraculous 
overthrow of society but by the creation of a new 
spirit in individuals. 
5. The Temptation Represents a Universal Law. 
Any one who undertakes a mission of kindness in 


the world sooner or later must spend a period in the 
“wilderness.” The power of evil among men, the sense 








THE TEMPTATION 43 


of our own weakness, the conviction that it is our duty 
to do something, drives us apart from our associates. 
Happy the man who then realizes that he shares the 
burden with God and refuses to turn stones into bread 
for his own comfort and to compromise with evil for 
worldly success ! 

The Russian author Tolstoi’s application of the 
temptations of Jesus to himself has a parallel in our 
own lives. The first was an assertion of the rights of 
the body. He found danger to happiness in that. Plea- 
sure is not happiness. The second was a temptation 
to throw the body away, to commit suicide. The third 
was to win for self the material things, for a man has to 
adapt himself to things as they are. ‘No,’ Tolstoi 
said, ‘‘the spirit must come first.’”’ So he voluntarily 
lived the life of a poor man. 

The temptation affords a great contrast between 
Jesus, who chose the mountain trail of hardship and 
self-denial, and men like Pilate, who chose the broad 
way of physical ease and self-indulgence. The Russian 
painter Gay has a picture of Jesus and Pilate. Tolstoi 
was deeply moved by it. He described it in substance 
as follows: that fat, shaven neck of the Roman gov- 
ernor, that large, well-fed sensual body, that out- 
stretched arm and its gesture of contempt; it seems 
alive, it breathes, and impresses itself on the memory 
forever. Facing Pilate is the witness to the truth, 
thin, muscular, worn by long vigils yet master of him- 
self and of the multitudes. Pilate despised him, but 
Jesus chose the way that overcame the Roman Empire 
and won the world. 


44 


PrP WO Ne 


eo 1 & ON 


IO A FP wH 


He Co 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. How does the temptation illustrate the law of rhythm? 
. What could Jesus see from Mount Quarantana? Point out the 


lace on the map. 


; Tell in brief form, as given in Matthew, the story of the three 


temptations. 

What three radical differences between Jesus’ religion and 
that of the Old Testament are involved in his decision in 
the first temptation? 


. In our experience what corresponds to the appeal to the spec- 


tacular in the second temptation? 


. On what belief of the Jewish people was the third temptation 


based ? 


. Show that the three temptations centre around one subject. 


What was the subject? 


. Two points of difference between Jesus and John? 
- Name one important lesson from the temptation of Jesus. 


Oral Discussion 


. Repeat Tennyson’s lines beginning, “Love took up the harp 


of life.” 


. In what form did Satan appear to Jesus? 


Which is more important, to see God in every-day things or in 
the odd and unusual occurrences of life? 


- Quote the four lines of Psalm 91 which may have suggested to 


Jesus the second temptation. 


- What happiness may have come to Jesus during the period 


_of temptation? 
Give some instances of miraculous intervention to help Old 
Testament characters. 


. Show from this lesson that it is helpful to know the words of 


the Bible. 
Special Assignments 


. What interpretation of the temptation does Cornicelius give 


in his painting, Christ Tempted by Satan ? 


. Write a Peso ptign of the region back of Jericho, the probable 


scene of the temptation. See Phelps, Story of Jesus 
Christ, 77-80. 


. Report the account of the temptation of Mohammed. 
. Show that the Jews regarded themselves as the favorites of 


God. 


Part 3 
POPULAR PREACHER AND HEALER 


CHapter VI 


JESUS WINS THE MASSES IN GALILEE 
Mark 1: 16-45. 


t. The Order of Events. 


How long Jesus remained in Judea after the baptism 
and temptation we have no means of knowing. Indeed, 
no one can say with certainty how long the public 
ministry of Jesus lasted or in what order the events of 
his public life occurred. Two points only are defined, 
his baptism, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Ceesar, in 
the fall of 28 A. D., and his crucifixion, in the spring of 
30 A. D., under Pontius Pilate. These events may be 
placed a year or two earlier if one dates the beginning 
of the reign of Tiberius from the time when he was 
made co-ruler with Augustus. 

We follow the order of events as given in Mark rather 
than the Fourth Gospel. No reference to any preaching 
in Judea occurs in the first three Gospels. It is therefore 
likely that Jesus remained in Bethany and Jerusalem 
planning his work, making friends, and observing the 
customs of religion at the capital of the nation. Jesus 
may have refrained out of courtesy to John from be- 
ginning his ministry in Galilee while John was still 
active along the banks of the Jordan. Mark says Jesus 

45 


46 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


began preaching in Galilee after John had been im- 
prisoned. 


2. Jesus Chooses a Strategic Centre. 


He went into Galilee preaching the good news of 
God. In the time of Jesus, Palestine was divided into 
four parts, three of which were on the west of the Jordan 
and one was on the east. Farthest south was rugged 
and barren Judea, with the proud capital at Jerusalem. 
North of that lay the rolling and fertile hills of Samaria, 
with two large cities, Samaria and Shechem. ‘The 
Samaritans were hated by the Jews, because they were 
not of pure Jewish blood. Judea and Samaria, by re- 
quest of the Jews themselves, were attached to Syria in 
6 A. D. and were ruled by Roman procurators instead 
of by Herod the Great and his sons. Pilate was proc- 
urator in the time of Jesus. North of Samaria was 
Galilee, with its rich plain of Esdraelon and its lovely 
lake. Lonely Perea was situated between the Jordan 
and the desert. It did not quite reach the Sea of Galilee 
on the north and did not pass beyond the river Arnon 
on the south. : 

A preliminary study of the map of Palestine is most 
important. The boundaries are easy to remember if one 
does not try to be exact. Indeed there is no definite, 
unchangeable boundary line either for the north or the 
south of Palestine. In general, a line drawn from Tyre 
to the southern base of Mount Hermon would enclose 
the Holy Land on the north, and another from the 
south shore of the Dead Sea toward the west through 
Beersheba would form the southern boundary. On the 
west is the Mediterranean Sea and on the east the 
Arabian Desert. 

The form of the land has influenced its history. In 





JESUS WINS THE MASSES IN GALILEE 47 


prehistoric times an earthquake split the land in two, 
making what is now the Jordan valley. This gulf formed 
a barrier that protected the Chosen People against 
the wandering tribes of the desert, and enabled them to 
develop during the thousand years before Christ a civili- 
zation which gave to the world its supreme religion. 

When Jesus went to Galilee to teach this new religion 
he founded his message on this text: ‘‘ The kingdom of 
God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the gospel.” 
Crowds gathered around him as they had often gath- 
ered around other teachers, for it was not an uncommon 
thing to see rabbis teaching little groups of people here 
and there. Galilee was the most favorable place for 
such public teaching, for the Galileans were more open- 
minded than the Judeans, partly because they had more 
frequent contact with the larger world. 

The population was very dense and it was possible 
in a short time to address thousands of people. Josephus 
wrote that there were two hundred and four towns and 
cities in a district that contained only sixteen hundred 
square miles. The most thickly populated part was the 
little plain of Gennesaret, three miles long and one mile 
wide, on the north of the Sea of Galilee. 

The sea is a beautiful inland lake surrounded by 
high hills, and lies almost seven hundred feet below 
the level of the ocean. It is thirteen miles long and 
eight miles wide and shaped like a harp. Around its 
lovely blue waters clustered nine prosperous cities, 
forming an almost unbroken ring of buildings. To-day 
the visitor may see the ruins of one of these cities, 
Tiberias, and bathe in the warm mineral waters from 
the same spring which filled the baths of Herod Antipas. 
It was an admirable centre for outdoor preaching, 
for crowds of fishermen were found along the shores of 


48 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


the sea and close by was a much-travelled highway 


running through Capernaum. 


3. Location of Capernaum. 

Matthew 9:1 calls Capernaum Jesus’ “own city.” 
Because his first four disciples lived there and because 
it was so central Jesus made that the starting-point of 
all his travels. From it he went forth into the towns 
of Galilee and from it at the last he went to Jerusalem 
to die. Nazareth did not have this honor because it 
was not so well located and also because it failed to 
recognize the greatness of Jesus. “A prophet is not 
without honor save in his own country.” 

Capernaum is situated on the north of the Sea of 
Galilee near the Plain of Gennesaret. This plain con- 
sists of green open slopes surrounded on the north, 
west, and south by barren, imprisoning cliffs. The 
road to Capernaum winds down among these pre- 
cipitous hills to the ancient site known as Tell Hum. 
Here to-day not far from the shore one may see the 
ruins of the synagogue in which Jesus spoke “with au- 
thority” and near by the mosaic floor of a church 
which was built over the house of Peter, where Jesus 
took dinner on his first Sabbath in the city. The syn- 
agogue was built by a Roman centurion (Luke 7: 5). 
The ruins show that it was a beautiful structure, seven- 
ty-nine by fifty-nine feet, built of fine white limestone. 
The central part of the interior was surrounded by 
colonnades on the north, west, and south. 

Standing on the stone steps at the entrance one had 
in view toward the east Bethsaida and the part of the 
plain where the Feeding of the Five Thousand took 
place, toward the south the sea and the new Greek 
cities on the heights with their white public buildings 


——— 





JESUS WINS, THE MASSES IN GALILEE 49 


gleaming in the sun. There also was the yellow cliff 
over which the herd of swine ran down into the sea. 

There was beauty there in Jesus’ day, not only the 
sparkling blue water as now, but also large groves, noble 
gardens, and fleets of sails. There was food and drink 
for all, for the lake was full of fish and the water whole- 
some. It was the sea that redeemed that hot basin and 
made it habitable, and it was the sea near which was 
concentrated the abundance of water, the fertility, 
and the industry and trade of that whole province. 

Of all the cities on the Sea of Galilee Capernaum was 
best suited to the purposes of the Master. It was on 
the great highway from Damascus to Jerusalem and 
- eonnected directly with the other great roads of the 
ancient world. It had its share of Greek and Roman 
- influences to make it broad, but was far enough from 
Herod’s city, Tiberias, to be free from official domina- 
tion. Here in a valley nearly seven hundred feet below 
sea level, around the blue Sea of Galilee, Jesus spent al- 
most all the days of his public career. Here started the 
religion which went forth and won the world. 


4. A Typical Day. 

In three paragraphs which are gems of beauty and 
brevity Mark describes Jesus’ first Sabbath in Caper- 
naum. In the morning he was in the synagogue, ac- 
companied no doubt by his four disciples. A larger 
attendance than usual was present, because it was ex- 
pected that the new teacher would speak. There was 
evidently general approval, for, they said, he teaches 
with “authority,” not by repeating dry-as-dust quota- 
tions but from his heart with conviction and power. In 
the excitement a ‘‘man with an unclean spirit” cried 
out and called Jesus the Holy One of God, meaning 


50 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


probably the Messiah. Jesus by a word exorcised the 
evil spirit, and at once became famous. 

In the afternoon he was at the house of Peter and 
was asked to help his host’s mother-in-law, who was ill 
with fever. He cured her, and she was able to help 
serve the guests. When evening came the fame of the 
Master brought to the house many that were ill and 
some that had evil spirits. He cured those who had 
diseases and cast out many demons. The record says 
that the evil spirits recognized that he was the Messiah, 
but that he did not permit them to speak, This evi- 
dently means that it was the belief in those days that 
both the evil spirits and the Messiah were supernatural 
beings and therefore had the power of recognizing each 
other. 


5. The Experience of Jesus in Healing. 


When the crowds came early next morning to Peter’s 
house to see the one who did the miracles on the Sab- 
bath, Jesus could not be found. Mark says that he had 
arisen very early and gone out to a lonely place to pray. 
Does this indicate that he was greatly troubled by the 
interest of the masses in physical healing? Did he pass 
a sleepless night after his first miracles because he 
feared that the greater work of teaching would suffer? 
Luke in reporting the same scene seems to suggest this. 
He says (4: 42, 43) that when the crowd tried to prevent 
Jesus from going away he persisted saying: “I must 
preach the Gospel, for therefore was I sent.”’ The peo- 
ple wanted more miracles but he declared that his 
mission was to teach. This is in keeping with the text 
he first used in Galilee: “Repent ye, and believe in the 
Gospel.” 

There can be no doubt, however, that Jesus did won- 


ne eta aes oe 


JESUS WINS THE MASSES IN GALILEE 51 


-derful things for the sick and insane. The sad condition 
of these unfortunates appealed to his sympathy. He 
had the power to help them and he used that power. 


6. Jesus Returns to His Home Town. 


Jesus told his Good News of the love of God in many 


places in Galilee (Mark 1:39). The freshness and 





Leen ee ——e 


eee eee anne 


originality of his ideas about the Father in heaven and 
his sympathy for the poor and sick won for him great 
popularity everywhere. When he reached his native 
place, the city where he had worked for many years as 
a carpenter, his fame had preceded him and his fellow 
citizens expected him to do wonders in Nazareth as he 
had in Capernaum. The story of this visit to Nazareth 
(Luke 4: 16-30) is one of the most interesting in the 
New Testament. We may imagine, as Elizabeth Stuart 
Phelps does in her Story of Jesus Christ, that Jesus and 


his disciples arrived before sunset, for the Hebrew 


Sabbath lasted from sunset Friday until sunset Satur- 
day. “The little town, occupied along the length of its 
rough highway, turned indifferent eyes to the mountains 
which were blazing in the dying day, and paid scant 
attention to the young citizen who had left a while 
ago, unknown, and was returning famous. Jesus looked 
at the familiar hills—grand, silent, these in solemn 
shadow, those transfigured with color, all carrying the 
thoughts up; but the villagers scarcely looked at Jesus. 
Their eyes were on the level earth, his on the heights. 
What wonder that they could not meet?” 

The next morning Jesus and his disciples attended 
the service in the synagogue. It may help us to realize 
just what happened there if we put in dramatic form 
the astonishing experience of that Sabbath morning. 


52 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Scene 1 
Jesus Returns to Nazareth 


Place: Street leading to the synagogue. 

Characters: Jesus, the disciples, and some bystanders. 

Jesus speaks: Remain here; I will go alone to the 
synagogue where I worshipped as a youth. There, per- 
haps, I shall speak to my kinsmen and townspeople. 

Disciple: Very well, Master, but remember the old 
proverb, no prophet is reeognized 3 in his own country. 

(Jesus goes into the synagogue.) 

Second disciple (to curious bystanders): You see our 
Master; he is the famous Rabbi who is doing such great 
things in Capernaum. 


Scene 2 
In the Synagogue 


Characters: The congregation, and Jesus who is 
sitting quietly in the rear. 

Reader (opening the service): Bless ye the Eternal, 
who is worthy of blessings for evermore. 

Congregation and Reader: Blessed art thou, the 
Eternal, Our God, King of the Universe, who hath 
formed the light, and created the darkness. 

Blessed art thou, King of the universe, who has se- 
lected us from all peoples, and given us thy law. 

Reader (beginning the second part of the service): 
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one (and the rest of 
- Deuteronomy 6:4-9). (This is followed by the reading 
of Deuteronomy 11: 13-21 and Numbers 15: 37-41.) 

One of the leaders (beginning the third part of the 
service and leading in a prayer for redemption—fol- 
lowed by five or six other petitions): True and valid, 
firmly fixed and all-enduring, right and trustworthy, 


JESUS WINS THE MASSES IN GALILEE 53 


lovely and endeared, desirable and pleasant, sublime 
and all-powerful, regular and acceptable, and good and 
beautiful is this word unto us for ever and ever. True 
is the God of the universe, our King, the rock of Jacob, 
the shield of our salvation. We will render thanks unto 
thee, and declare thy praise, because of our lives that 
are entrusted to thy hand, and our souls that are con- 
fided unto thee. For all these things be thy name 
blessed and extolled, O our King, continually unto all 
eternity. 

A leader (priestly blessings): Our God and the God 
of our fathers, bless us with the threefold blessing con- 
tained in the law: 

The Eternal bless and preserve thee! 

The Eternal cause his countenance to shine upon thee, 
and be gracious unto thee! 

The Eternal direct his countenance toward thee and 
grant thee peace! 

Congregation: Let the son of David, thy servant, 
come speedily, and do thou enhance his power with thy 
salvation that we daily hope for. Blessed art thou, O 
Eternal, who causest the horn of salvation to sprout 
forth. 

(A light comes over the face of Jesus as he hears 
these earnest words of his people.) 


Scene 3 
Jesus Rebukes His Kinsmen 


Reader: (begins the fifth part of the service by read- 
ing from the law.) 

The reading of the law is finished. 

(An attendant approaches Jesus and asks him to read 
from the Prophets.) 

Jesus (beginning the sixth part of the service, reads 


54 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


from the prophet Isaiah): The spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he anointed me to preach good tidings to 
the poor; he hath sent me to proclaim release to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at 
liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the accepta- 
ble year of the Lord. (The Jews about him stare at this 
unusual reading and the unusual manner of the read- 
ing.) 

A Jew: Hsst! Who is he? Do we not know him? 

Second Jew: They said outside that he is the famous 
rabbi who has created such a stir in Capernaum. 

Jesus (translating into Aramaic, winds the scroll and 
begins to explain the reading): To-day hath this scrip- 
ture been fulfilled in your ears. 

(The Jews about him strain their eyes to watch him 
and listen attentively, with some signs of hostility.) 

First Jew: Is not this Joseph’s son, Joseph the car- 
penter ? 

Jesus: Doubtless ye will say unto me this parable, 
Physician, heal thyself; whatsoever we have heard 
done in Capernaum, do also here in thine own country. 

(Outburst of dissatisfaction from the Jews. Jesus 
tries to continue, but it is of no use.) 

Jesus: Verily I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable 
in his own country. You claim to be the chosen people 
of God, the elect. I tell you, there were many lepers in 
Israel in the time of Elisha the Prophet, and none of 
them were cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. 
(The service breaks up in confusion, the people crowd 
around Jesus and force him out of the synagogue.) 

The crowd with the quick passion of an oriental mob 
pushes Jesus along toward the outskirts of the town 
where there is a precipice. To his horror he perceives 
that they are actually going to force him over the 


XS) 
JESUS WINS THE MASSES IN GALILEE 55 


edge. At this the Master turns and faces his hostile 
neighbors. When they see his face and feel the power of 
his personality expressed in his eyes, they fall back 
and he passes unharmed through their midst. 


for) 


© 00 


NOOR wD 


na BP wh 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


Give the probable dates of Jesus’ birth, baptism, and cruci- 
fixion. 


_ Describe Palestine and locate on the map the four divisions. 


A difference between the Galileans and Judeans that was 
favorable to the success of the new religion? 


_ What are some of the reasons why Jesus made Capernaum his 


headquarters? 


. What happened on Jesus’ first Sabbath in Capernaum that 


made it a typical day in his first months of popularity in 
Galilee? 


_ Show that Jesus regarded it as his chief mission to teach 


rather than heal the sick. 


. What explains Jesus’ popularity with the common people? 
. What unhappy experience did Jesus have in Nazareth during 


his first period of preaching in Galilee? 


Oral Discussion 


. Let the class read the drama in the synagogue at Nazareth, 


members of the class taking the different parts. 


. Why were Jesus’ fellow citizens jealous of him? 


Why do we follow the order of events as given in the Gospel 
of Mark rather than in the Gospel of John?’ 

Describe the Sea of Galilee. 

What was the location of Capernaum? 

What danger was there in Jesus’ healing the sick? 


. What shows that Jesus had a more powerful personality than 


other men? 
Special Assignments 


. Study the order of events in Jesus’ life and give the reasons 


for settling upon the following dates in his career; his birth, 
5 on ang C.; his baptism, 28 A. D.; and his crucifixion, 
30 A. D. 


. Describe Tissot’s painting, Jesus in the Synagogue. 


CHAPTER VII 


JESUS CHALLENGES THE RELIGIOUS 
LEADERS 


Mark 2: 1-3: 6; II Corinthians 3: 6-17; Romans 8: 2 


1. First Criticism by the Scribes. 


The people had heard Jesus gladly, because he talked 
of things that interested them. Wherever he appeared, 
a throng quickly gathered, partly to hear him speak 
and partly to see him heal the sick. He taught them 
about three subjects: the Kingdom of God, the father- 
hood of God, and a new standard of morals. He differed 
from all their other teachers, because he seemed most 
interested in showing them how to be happy. His new 
morality was not less strict than that of the Old Testa- 
ment, but his way of stressing the good results won the 
people. In one place only, Nazareth, had he been 
opposed. That was due, probably, more to jealousy 
than to any objection to his teaching. 

When he came back to Capernaum, he evidently 
made Peter’s house his week-day teaching quarters. 
People would crowd in through the open door when they 
saw that Jesus was teaching. One day four friends 
were bringing a palsied man on a stretcher, but found 
that the crowd reached out into the street, so that their 
entrance was blocked. They carried the sick man 
by the outdoor stairway to the roof and made an open- 
ing in the thatch and let him down in front of Jesus. 
Jesus saw the faith of these four men and said to the 
paralytic, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.’ The teachers 
of the Pharisees, who were seated close by, took this 

56 


JESUS CHALLENGES THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS 57 


occasion to oppose Jesus. They said, ‘Who can for- 
give sins except God?” Whether they were sincere, 
or simply used this occasion to catch Jesus, we do not 
know. John 20: 23 shows that the apostles were given 
authority to forgive sin. That probably meant the 
authority to pronounce that one’s sins were forgiven, 
if the sinner was truly repentant. 

At any rate, this was the beginning of a iong struggle 
between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. They here 
charged him with blasphemy. He replied by declaring 
that he could not only forgive sins, but also heal the 
body, and then told the man to take up his bed and 
walk. William Blake calls these critics unsympathetic, 
reading blasphemy into this desire of Jesus to free the 
sick man from his troubles. He calls them the “wheel 
of religion,” a wheel on which Jesus would be broken. 


‘‘But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life, 
Creating Nature from this fiery Law, 
By self-denial and Forgiveness of Sin.” 


2. Jesus Invites Further Criticism by the Friends He 
Chooses. 

In his journeys around Capernaum, Jesus often 
passed the toll station on the Damascus Road where 
Levi collected the tax on fish and other articles of food. 
He became well acquainted with Levi, who in Matthew 
9:9 is called Matthew, and found him to be a very 
able and trustworthy man. So he called him to be one 
of his disciples. Levi gave a banquet to Jesus in honor 
of this event and invited many of his friends. Jesus, 
disregarding the law of the Jews which forbade them 
to eat with those who were ceremonially unclean, ate 
freely with those whom the Pharisees regarded as out- 
casts. He was impatient with class distinctions. To 


58 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


him a tax-collector or a common woman like Mary 
Magdalene, provided they were sorry for their sins 
and sincerely desiring a noble life, were better than the 
proud Pharisees. He did not despise Levi for taking 
the contract to collect the Roman taxes. The only 
reason for condemning him would be that he belonged 
to that group of tax-collectors that overcharged the 
people. But there is no reason to think that Levi was 
a man of that sort. 

Jesus was criticised for associating with “sinners.” 
By sinners the critics referred to a. large group of 
irreligious persons who did not attend the synagogue 
and made no effort to keep the law of Moses. They 
were classed with publicans for they dealt freely with 
the many foreigners that had come in increasing num- 
bers into Palestine since the time of Alexander the 
Great. Their business required them to deal so inti- 
mately with outsiders that they were regarded as “de- 
filed.” They might be just as good morally as a Pharisee 
but they could not keep all the six hundred ceremonial 
laws which a thoroughly good Jew was supposed to ob- 
serve. Jesus declared himself the friend of these sin- 
ners. He knew that many of these ceremonial laws 
were an unnecessary burden and that they did not pro- 
mote spiritual religion. 

In his fight against the scribes he was fighting the 
cause of humanity. He saw the worth of the human 
soul, and he was the first teacher in human history who 
made the world see the value of every soul. He per- 
ceived beneath the rough exterior of the common- 
place man qualities of love, loyalty, and heroism. He 
treated little children even with reverence, in contrast 
with the ideas of the greatest teachers of the past. 
Plato, for example, the greatest philosopher of the 





JESUS CHALLENGES THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS 59 


ancient world, said, in speaking of one of a group of 
unfortunate children, “‘ Expose it as a creature for which 
no provision is made.’”’ That this was the common view 
of children before Christ came is shown by a letter 
written by an Egyptian Greek to his wife in September 
or October of the year 1 A. D. The original was found 
among the papyrus documents that have recently been 
discovered in Egypt. It reads as follows: ‘‘ Hilarion to 
Alis . . . greetings. . . . Know that we are still even 
now in Alexandria. Do not fidget, if, at the general 
return, I stay in Alexandria. I pray and beseech you, 
take care of the little child, and as soon as we have 
our wages, I will send you up something. If you are 
delivered, if it was a male, let it live; if it was a female, 
cast it out. ... How can I forget you? So don’t 
fidget.”’ The letter is not an unkind one; it is sympa- 
thetic, masculine, direct, and friendly. And then it 
ends with the suggestion, inconceivable to us to-day, 
that if the baby is a girl, it need not be kept. It can be 
put out either on the land or in the river, left to kite or 
crocodile. 

Perhaps the greatest influence exerted by Jesus on 
the common life of mankind has been indirect. Through 
the stories, pictures, poems, and hymns, based on the 
second chapter of Luke, the ideal Christ-child has be- 
come a universal possession. The birth of Christ has 
been depicted by at least eighty different artists such 
as Correggio, Raphael, Murillo, and Rossetti. These 
are the most common pictures on the walls of our 
homes, school-buildings, and churches. Great poets 
like Browning, Tennyson, Milton, and Whittier have 
exalted childhood by their references to Jesus. Dickens’ 
Christmas Carol suggests the power of the Christmas 
spirit in changing family life in many nations. 


60 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


3- By Disregarding the Custom of Fasting Jesus 
Calls down Further Criticism on His Head. 


The Jewish teachers asked Jesus why his disciples 
did not observe the custom of fasting. It was required 
of faithful Jews that they abstain from food on Mon- 
days and Thursdays. Jesus paid no attention to this 
and no doubt often attended a dinner given by publi- 
cans or sinners on one of these fast days. His reply to 
the question was: “‘No man sews a piece of new cloth 
on an old garment.” He meant that his religion was 
different from’ the old; it was one of joy and happiness 
in the natural blessings of life. 

He did not believe in going through these external 
forms when your heart was not in them. The Jews ex- 
pected to earn merit in heaven by ceremonial acts that 
had nothing to do with their inner life. Jesus always 
condemned that. His idea was that it was hypocritical 
to put on a long face and go without food when the 
heart was rejoicing over such good news as he had 
brought to men. 


4. Jesus’ New Idea of the Sabbath is Criticised. 


One day Jesus and his disciples while out walking 
pulled off some grains of wheat growing in a field, 
rubbed the grains in their hands to remove the parts 
not eatable, and ate the grains. The Pharisees criti- 
cised Jesus for this on the ground that he and his 
disciples had done work on the Sabbath by rubbing the 
wheat. These petty regulations were offensive to 
Jesus not only because they failed to contribute to 
religious life but also because they led to hypocrisy. 
For example, there was a regulation that no one should 
walk more than three thousand feet beyond his dwell- 
ing on the Sabbath. But if at this point a man should 


; 





JESUS CHALLENGES THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS 61 


deposit on Friday food enough for two meals, that 
would constitute another ‘‘dwelling,’’ and so he might 
walk another three thousand feet. In literally hundreds 
of ways they deceived themselves and others by these 
curious interpretations of their laws. Jesus saw that it 
was all a part of their external and formal system. In 
condemning that system Jesus was in full agreement 
with the Old Testament prophets who stood for the 
great principles of justice, mercy, and the love of God. 
They would have been astonished could they have seen 
the complicated system of hypocritical explanations 
which the later Jews had built up on the great princi- 
ples of Hebrew law and prophecy. 

Jesus did a great service for mankind in stating 
clearly that such a system made men slaves. He 
asserted that the Sabbath was made for man’s good 
and happiness. This was an important position to take, 
for it meant that institutions, however sacred, should 
never be regarded as ends in themselves. They are 
useful only as they are a means to better living. Jesus 
here again announces a fundamental and far-reaching 
principle: ‘Persons alone are truly valuable and sacred 
in themselves; the sacredness of all places, and of all 
institutions, even of the church and of the sacraments 
and of the Sabbath, is wholly borrowed” (King, The 
Ethics of Jesus). 


5. The Four Points of the Controversy and Its Sig- 
nificance to Jesus and to Us. 

The Jews were offended, first, by the strong person- 
ality of Jesus, which enabled him to say to a repentant 
man, regardless of Jewish customs and forms, ‘‘Thy 
sins are forgiven thee”; second, by his idea that no 
rule should forbid the association of good people with 


62 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


others, whether the others belonged to the same class 
or not; third, by disregarding the custom of fasting, 
which was an important form of the old religion; 
fourth, by breaking the Sabbath, which was a funda- 
mental thing in Judaism. 

This controversy resulted in a deliberate plot on 
the part of the Pharisees to put Jesus to death. The 
greatness of their anger against him is suggested by 
Mark 3:6, which says that they went to the extent of 
plotting with their chief enemies, the Herodians, to 
destroy Jesus. He seemed to be a much more dangerous 
enemy to their religion than the followers of Herod’s 
family, the loyalists of Judea, who had been so cruel 
to the Pharisees. This, then, was the beginning of that 
struggle that led the Pharisees at last to demand of 
Pilate that he should crucify Jesus. 

To us Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees has meant a 
new emphasis on the worth of every individual soul 
regardless of race or class distinction, and freedom from 
burdensome forms and ceremonies that in the end lead 
to hypocrisy. It has taught us to distinguish sharply 
between the customs and institutions that help build 
up human personality and those that are a waste of 
time and money. It teaches the great truth which 
Lowell presented in his Present Crisis: 

“New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good 
uncouth; 


They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 
of Truth.” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. Name three subjects which Jesus talked about during his 
tour through Galilee. 








0 OD ND oe WwW NY 


ono te 


moO nN 


JESUS CHALLENGES THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS 63 


. Describe the healing of the palsied man, which was the occa- 


sion of the beginning of the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus. 


_ On account of what friendships that Jesus had made did the 


Pharisees criticise him? 
Why did Jesus so often stand up for the outcasts? 
ou did Jesus change the attitude of the world toward chil- 
ren? 


. Why was Jesus not interested in fasting? 


What was Paul’s view of Jewish forms? II Corinthians 3:6 
and Romans 8: 3. 

In the controversy with the Jews over the Sabbath what 
principle did the Master announce? 


. What has humanity gained from Jesus’ opposition to the 


Pharisees ? 
Oral Discussion 
How did Jesus challenge class distinctions among the Jews? 


Show that the Jews won in the struggle at the time but that 
Jesus has been vindicated by history. 


. What class distinctions still exist among us? 
. What was Plato’s view of little children? 
. Name some classical paintings of the Nativity. 


Special Assignments 


_ Write a sketch of the Pharisees, showing their beliefs, their 


good points, and their faults. 


. Consider the sense in which an apostle (John 20: 23) or any 


Christian is authorized to forgive sins. 


. Describe Millais’ Christ in the House of his Parents. 
. Read the references to Paul’s letters at the head of this chap- 


fe and make a list of the points in which he agreed with 
esus. 


CHAPTER VIII 


JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 
Mark 3: 13-19; Luke 6: 12-16. 
1. The Need. 


Isaiah once said (8: 16): ‘Bind up the testimony, seal | 


the teaching among my disciples.” Every great leader 
who desires to build for the future gathers about him 


chosen companions who shall carry on his work after | 


he has gone. There were three reasons why this would 
seem important to Jesus at the end of this period of 
great popularity in Galilee. 

First, the crowds that followed him were more than 
he could teach, and very many of them were sick and 
discouraged. It was more than one person could do to 
help them all. So Jesus gradually gathered from among 
his followers those who seemed best fitted to be his 
assistants. 

Second, his rejection at Nazareth must have re- 
vealed to him unexpected sources of opposition, and 


even of danger to his life. To Nazareth he had returned 


with honor from his successes in other towns. But there 
he was met with such unbelief that he could not per- 
form miracles (Mark 6: 1-6). 

Third, the Jewish teachers that belonged to the party 
of the Pharisees followed Jesus persistently to find 
fault with him. Many of them, no doubt, were sincere 


OO 


in their effort to preserve the old-time respect for the 


oral law. Jesus had so much favor with the masses 
that they thought his open disregard for the regula- 
64 


JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 65 








tions concerning eating with sinners, breaking the 
Sabbath, and fasting would have a disastrous effect on 
Judaism. 


2. Jesus’ Care in Selecting His Assistants. 


No official board or group of leaders ever accom- 
plished as much as the disciples. Some one has sug- 
gested that the greatest miracle of history was the 
transformation of these common men into the founders 
of Christianity. But it may not be correct to call these 
‘men common. Jesus had spent a great deal of time in 
selecting them. The first four, three of whom later 
formed the inner circle of his companions, were well 
‘known to the Master as disciples of John the Baptist. 
Jesus had probably been with them in Judea. Peter 
had a home in Capernaum, and his three partners in 
the fishing business, James and John and Andrew were 
evidently men of practical ability. Jesus knew them 
not only as men of zeal in religion, but also as em- 
ployers of labor on the sea. 

Some time later Matthew the tax-collector was 
chosen, but not until Jesus had studied him well. We 
may believe that many earnest conversations took 
place between them before Matthew gave up his posi- 
tion as collector of internal revenue for the Roman 
government. If Papias, a bishop in Phrygia, 1s correct, 
it was this disciple who wrote the sayings of Jesus in 
Aramaic, and thus preserved them until they found a 
permanent home in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. 
This would indicate that Matthew was an educated 
man. 

Of one of the disciples Jesus said, ‘‘I have prayed for 
thee,” indicating that he gave personal attention to 
each. Judas, the only one not a Galilean, was probably 


66 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


no exception. He had come from Kerioth beyond 
Hebron, and therefore shown unusual zeal in going so 
far from home to become a disciple. There are indica- 
tions that he had unusual ability. Jesus may not have 
been mistaken in Judas, for it is possible that those 
scholars are correct who think that he meant by the 
betrayal to force Jesus to declare himself as the Mes- 
siah, and so should be considered as a mistaken and 
unwise disciple rather than a traitor. At any rate Jesus 
took great care to choose the right men, for Luke re- 
ports that “he continued all night in prayer to God” 
before he made public his choice of assistants. 


3. Description of the Twelve. 


Much interest attaches to the little group to whom 
Jesus left the task of founding the Christian Church. 
There is some uncertainty regarding the correct list 
because Luke substituted for Thaddeus, Judas the son 
of James. Following the lists in Mark and Matthew 
we find agreement as to the three groups, but a re- 
arrangement of the names within the groups of four. 


MARK MATTHEW 


Peter, James, John, Andrew. Peter, Andrew, James, John. 
Philip, Bartholomew, Mat- Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, 


thew, Thomas. Matthew. 

James, son of Alpheus, Thad- James, son of Alphzeus, Thad- 
deus. deus. 

Simon the Zealot and Judas Simon the Zealot and Judas 
Iscariot. Iscariot. 


C. R. Brown in a recent book (These Twelve) has 
characterized nine of these men as follows: 


Peter, The Man of Impulse. 
John, The Man of Temper. 
Philip, The Matter-of-Fact Man. 


JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 67 


Thomas, The Man of Moods. 

Judas, The Man Who Might Have Been. 

James, The Man of Silence. 

Andrew, The Man of Decision. 

Matthew, The Man of Business. 

Simon Zealotes, The Man Who Was a Flame of Fire. 


Zimmermann’s Christ and the Fishermen furnishes 
us an interesting study of the faces of Jesus, James, 
and John, and the father of the last two. The strong 
sympathetic face of Jesus and its pleading attitude con- 
trasts with the questioning face of the old man. For 
half a century the father of James and John has held a 
different view of religion from that which his sons 
have now adopted. He is in grave doubt about the 
wisdom of their following the new teacher. The faces 
of the young men show that they are eager to go with 
Jesus. They had been with him in Judea when they 
were disciples of John. They had there proved them- 
selves very earnest men. For this reason Jesus was 
anxious to secure them as assistants in his work. 

Of the first six apostles Peter was to play altogether 
the foremost réle in the history of Christianity. He 
was impulsive and imaginative, active and kind-hearted, 
open to new ideas, but not very dependable. He denied 
Jesus to save himself, and later he was charged with 
hypocrisy by Paul (Galatians 2:4 and 11-14). Yet it 
was Peter who preached so powerfully that he won 
three thousand people to Christ in one sermon (Acts 
2:41), and who first preached the gospel among the 
Gentiles (Acts 10). There is good evidence that he was 
the leader also in spreading the faith in Jerusalem. 
Later in Rome he was an assistant to Paul, notwith- 
standing their early differences. It is believed that it 


68 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


was Peter who furnished the material to Mark for his 
gospel. Bishop Papias says that Mark was interpreter 
for Peter in Rome and that Mark got his facts about 
Jesus from Peter. Whatever else Jesus meant by 
Matthew 16:18, he surely signified that Peter was 
to be one of the leading founders of the Christian 
Church. 

James and John are characterized as “Sons of 
Thunder,”’ which suggests that they were rough and 
ready men, prepared for fearless action. This is hard 
to understand, for we have learned to think of John as 
modest and humble, quiet and loving. The great artists, 
as DaVinci in The Last Supper, have depicted him as a 
gentle and spiritual character, nearest to the Master 
himself in his temperament. Also some scholars have 
given him credit for writing the Fourth Gospel. Prob- 
ably we have been misled by all these extra-biblical 
descriptions. Just as we must think of Jesus as much 
more virile and efficient than the artists and poets have 
described him, so we should think of John, in the terms 
of the Bible, as hot-tempered and fiery, eager to call 
down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that 
would not entertain Jesus (Luke 9:54). When perse- 
cution overtook the Christians, James was the first to 
die (Acts 12: 2). 

Peter, John, and James formed an inner circle of 
the apostles. They were with Jesus in his greatest:vic- 
tories and in his severest trials. In the home of Jairus 
Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John on the 
occasion of the healing of the sick girl. On the Mount 
of Transfiguration these three spent the night with 
Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane he asked these 
same friends to watch with him. Among all the disci- 
ples these three were most congenial to Jesus, and later 


JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 69 


history shows that they understood best his plans for 
the Christian Church. | 

Thomas, Simon the Zealot, and Judas each have 
something peculiar about them. Thomas is known as 
the doubter. According to the Fourth Gospel, for no 
description is given of him in the first three, Thomas 
was the one who had to be convinced of the resurrection 
of Jesus by definite evidence. Jesus gently rebuked 
him for this saying, “‘Happy are they that have not 
seen and yet have believed.” 

Simon the Zealot may have been chosen by Jesus to 
represent that large group of people who believed it 
their duty to use violence in bringing in the Kingdom 
of God. Simon had probably been a member of the 
eroup that followed Judas, leader of a revolt against 
Rome twenty years before. Jesus may have been at- 


- tracted to him by his unselfish devotion to the cause 


and his readiness to act. 

Judas has always been a puzzle to historians. There 
must have been something attractive about him which 
interested Jesus. There is an old tradition which may 
explain the mystery. An artist once planned to paint 
a masterpiece showing the Twelve seated about the 
Master in varying attitudes of aspiration and devotion. 
He selected his models with the greatest care. When 
he came to paint John, he finally found a young man 
who was strikingly handsome. He had the face and the 
presence of a veritable Apollo; and his charm was not 
altogether physical—there was a look of high purpose 
and spiritual aspiration written across his features, as 
if by the finger of the Lord. He seemed to have been 
created expressly to serve as a suitable model for the 
figure of John in the great painting. 

When the artist came to paint Judas he went for a 


70 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


model to the lowest parts of the city, where criminals 
were bred, and to the prisons, where men were paying 
the penalty for their evil doing. For a time he did not 
seem to find just the man who in his looks and bearing 
might serve as the Judas of his canvas. But one day 
in a back street, he chanced upon a man whose furtive 
look, whose hard, unsympathetic face, whose sordid 
expression met all the requirements. He easily made a 
bargain with him to come to his studio the next day to 
sit for the figure of Judas. As the man was sitting there 
one day looking intently on the face of John, the artist 
remarked, ‘‘‘That is a handsome face.” ‘“Yes,’’ replied 
the man who was there to represent Judas, ‘‘it was once 
my own.” Five years before that he had sat for the 
portrait of John. These few years of sin and shame had 
destroyed the image of one who looked like the beloved 
disciple. We might almost say that there is in each one 
of us, potentially, a John or a Judas, according to the 
set of one’s will and the measure of his faith. 
“One ship turns east and another west 
With the selfsame winds that blow. 


Tis the set of the sails and not the gales 
Which tell us the way to go. 


Like the winds of the sea are the waves of fate 
As we voyage along through life. 
’Tis the set of the soul which decides the goal, 
And not the calm or the strife.” 


4. Jesus Sends the Twelve Disciples on a Preaching 
Tour in Galilee. | 

Soon after his rejection at Nazareth Jesus felt more 

than ever the importance of getting his message to all 

people. Also he desired that his disciples should have 

experience which would prepare them to be his suc- 

cessors. So he sent them out to do the things that 





JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 71 


they had seen him do. They were to go two by two in 
different parts of Galilee. They were to take no change 
of clothing, no money, and no food. This was evidently 
a sign of the urgency of their mission. They were to 
go into all the villages and teach in the synagogues and 
in the market-places how the people should prepare 
themselves for the coming of the Kingdom. Mark says 
(6:7) that Jesus gave them authority to cure people 
who were possessed with evil spirits, and at the end of 
the account he tells that the disciples preached re- 
pentance, cast out evil spirits, and healed many sick. 
Many writers believe that the account of the sending 
out of the Seventy in Luke 10: 1-24 is simply another 
version of this story of the Twelve. 


5. The Later History of the Apostles. 


Peter, James, and John are the only ones who figure 
largely in the New Testament. Peter and John were 
the most active in spreading the gospel, and James was 
the first martyr (Acts 12:2). Tradition says that Peter 
joined Paul in Rome and became his interpreter. 
Recently a burial place of about 200 A. D. was dis- 
covered bearing the names of Paul and Peter, and there 
is no reason to doubt that both died in Rome. It 
would be like Peter to insist upon being crucified with 
his head down, as punishment for denying his master; 
that is the report which has been handed down. It is 
believed by many that John became a bishop in Asia 
Minor with his residence in Ephesus. 

Nothing is certain concerning the records of the rest 
of the Twelve. Philip and Bartholomew may have 
been missionaries in Phrygia, as some early writers 
have it. Thomas is said to have been a missionary to 
Parthia. We may be sure that they all, if they escaped 


72 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


early death, did their best to spread the gospel which 
Jesus had taught them. 


6. The Women Who Helped. 


The list of the assistants of Jesus would be incomplete 
without the women who gave money and time to the 
promotion of the new religion. These faithful ones re- 
ferred to in Mark 15: 40, 41; 16: 9; Matthew 26: 6-13; 
Luke 8:2, 3; 24:10; John 19:25, were in constant 
attendance on Jesus during his Galilean ministry. 
When he made that dread journey to Jerusalem they 
fearlessly went with him to make his way more com- 
fortable. His attitude toward them has done much to 
win for woman that position of equality which she en- 
joys to-day. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. Three reasons why Jesus began to train men to be his assis- 
tants. 

. What share did some of these men afterward have in founding 
Christianity ? 

. What BLOWS that Jesus took great pains in selecting the right 
men ? 

. How does Zimmermann’s Christ and the Disciples show Jesus’ 
care in securing the right kind of disciples? 

. Name and characterize the first four disciples. 

. Tell the occasions when the three who formed the inner circle 
of Jesus’ apostles were with him. 

. What part did Peter play in the history of the early church? 

. Describe Philip, Thomas and Judas. What shows that the 
message of the Twelve on their preaching tour was very 
urgent? 


On Oo FP WO NH & 


Oral Discussion 


1. What characteristics did the disciples possess more important 
than learning or riches? 

2. How may Judas be defended? 

3. What may the Greek names of two of the apostles indicate? 





JESUS’ ASSISTANTS 73 


4. What was the fate of these men? Acts 12: 3-19. 
5. Why may Jesus have chosen Simon the Zealot? 


Special Assignments 


1. Read Charles R. Brown’s These Twelve and write a description 
of nine of the disciples. 

2. Write an essay on the part that the disciples played in the 
mission work of the early church according to tradition. 


Part 4 
THE TEACHER 


CHAPTER IX 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 
Matthew 5: 1-48; Luke 6: 27-86; Philippians 2: 5-11 34:8. 


1. The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount. 


The choice of twelve disciples marks the beginning 
of a definite organization in the group that followed 
Jesus. When he had selected his twelve assistants he 
took occasion to deliver an address which “has become 
the most cherished possession of the western world” 
(Matthew, chapters 5-7). As the choice of the number 
twelve for the apostles indicates that Jesus recognized 
the twelve tribes of Israel, so his new statement of the 
laws of Christian conduct shows that he had in mind 
the Law of Moses. His new kingdom needed to be 
clearly defined in contrast with that of Israel. The 
Sermon on the Mount was a sort of constitution, out- 
lining clearly the basis of Christianity, and announcing 
principles from which men must not depart if they 
desire to remain true to the original purpose of the 
Founder. 

Jesus was now at the height of his popularity in 
Galilee. People thronged about him by the thousands 
to be healed and to hear his cheerful message. One 
morning after he had spent all night in prayer he called 

74 


OO 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 75 


the twelve disciples and appointed them to be his 
official companions and advisers. Tissot, in his painting 
of the scene of the sermon, locates it a few miles west 
of the Sea of Galilee on a hill called the Horns of Hattin. 
Jesus is standing on an elevation on the side of the hill 
and gathered close about him are the newly chosen dis- 
ciples. On the hillside in front a multitude of people 
has already gathered, and a long line of others is seen 
approaching from Capernaum. In the distant fore- 
ground is the blue sea and dotting the landscape on all 
sides are the villages and cities of Galilee. So great in 
moral quality were the teachings uttered by Jesus at 
this time that even one who does not consider Jesus 
divine has said that this sermon counts as one of the 
most wonderful collections of ethical teaching in the 
world. 


2. An Outline of the Sermon. 


Since this address is regarded as the most important 
religious document ever printed it is well to present 
here two different outlines. Professor Votaw in the 
Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible offers the following 
description: 


A. The ideal life described. Matthew 5: 1-16. 
a. Its characteristics. Matthew 5: 1-12. 
b. Its mission. Matthew 5: 13-16. 
B. Its relation to the earlier Hebrew ideal. Matthew 5: 17-20. 
C. The outworkings of the ideal life. Matthew 5: 21-7: 12. 
a. In deeds and motives. Matthew 5: 21-48. 
b. In real religious worship. Matthew 6: 1-18. 
c. In trust and self-devotion. Matthew 6: 19-34. 
d. In treatment of others. Matthew 7: 1-12. 
D. The duty of living the ideal life. Matthew 7: 13-27. 


For students beginning the study of the sermon the 
following simple outline may be helpful to remember. 


76 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


1. A description of those who belong in the Kingdom 
of God. Matthew 5: 3-16. 

2. A comparison of the conduct required by Jesus 
with that taught in the Old Testament. Matthew 
0:17-6:18. 

3. One lofty purpose and simple faith is the rule of 
life. Matthew 6: 19-34. 

4. Do not judge others. Matthew 7: 1-6. 

5. Have faith in God’s willingness to bless. Matthew 
7: 7-11. 

6. Do good, not merely talk about it. Matthew 
7: 12-27. 


3. A Problem about the Sermon. 

We have in Matthew (5-7) and Luke (6: 20-49) two 
differing versions of the Sermon on the Mount. The 
question arises: “‘ Did Jesus deliver at one time and place 
the sermon as printed in Matthew?” If so how shall 
we account for the report in Luke? The record of it 
in Luke is so much shorter and differs so much in the 
wording of the various sayings that various explana- 
tions have been given to account for the two forms. 
If we try to imagine the situation we may clear up the 
difficulty. Those who listened to Jesus at the Horns of 
Hattin repeated his Aramaic words to their friends 
until by word of mouth its message was spread far 
and wide. Some twenty years later Matthew collected 
the various sayings in that sermon and also many of 
the other sayings of Jesus in a little pamphlet and dated 
them all as given at the time when the disciples were 
chosen. 

On the other hand the group of sayings which had 
actually been delivered by Jesus on that occasion was 
handed down by different persons in Aramaic, trans- 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 77 


lated into Greek, and finally became a part of the Gos- 
pel of Luke. This theory, which is generally accepted, 
regards the report in Luke as more nearly representing 
what Jesus actually said that day at the Horns of 
Hattin, while Matthew is believed to have put into 
his one address many sayings and parables originally 
given by Jesus on different occasions. This is in keep- 
ing with Matthew’s habit of grouping the teachings of 
Jesus without regard to the dates when they were given. 


4. Watchwords of the New World. 


One of the achievements of Jesus was to picture ‘in 
words a new world, a new kind of civilization which 
he was seeking to inaugurate. To appreciate what 
Jesus meant is harder than for a boy to appreciate fine 
literature. One day a class in English literature was 
painfully reciting on the grammar and syntax of a 
passage in Milton. The principal entered the room, 
picked up Paradise Lost, and began to read.’ It was a 
revelation, and for at least one member of the class it 
opened the door into a new and wonderful world. 
From that time on literature took on a new meaning. 
So Jesus made real and possible a new kind of life. 
The best description of it is found in the eight sentences, 
commonly called the ‘‘Beatitudes” which form the 
introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. They 
would be difficult to understand if Jesus had not come 
and given them a perfect illustration. To a world like 
that of Mussolini they do not apply. Jesus was pic- 
turing the kind of a man needed for his kind of a world, 
which stood in sharp contrast to the materialistic, 
calculating, self-confident, hard, and selfish society 
which counts Jesus impractical. Here is his descrip- 
tion of the Christian. 


78 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Blessed are the poor in spirit. This is the key to the 
first door of the kingdom. It means happy are they 
who have put away pride in all its forms—pride of 
riches, knowledge, achievement, goodness. The poor in 
spirit are the humble-minded, those who are willing to 
be taught. Dante put pride at the head of all the sins, 
because it separates one from his fellows and kills love. 
Jesus did not recommend the inferiority complex. 
The Christian is not to underestimate himself nor be 
craven-minded, but to see himself as he is and to give 
his life to things that are real. Kipling foresaw the 
time coming when 


“‘No one shall work for money, 
And no one shall toil for fame; 
But each for the love of working, 
And each in his separate star 
Shall draw the thing as he sees it 
For the God of things as they are.’ 


That means that false standards, false pride shall pass 
away and men shall strike the rock bottom of reality 
in the thought of themselves and in their dealings with 
others. This is true humility. This is the place of great 
achievement, and the condition of happiness. 

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. 
At first glance this seems so untrue that we seek for a 
hidden meaning, and say it signifies happy are they 
who are sorry for their sins, blessed are they that re- 
pent. But it is wiser to take Jesus’ saying in its plain 
sense—happy is the man who has troubles of his own 
for he is able to sympathize with the great mass of 
people who suffer. He shall be comforted because he 
enters into a deeper life of love and friendship than 
would otherwise have been possible. ‘There are those 
who know how to comfort mourners with such beauti- 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 79 


ful friendliness as to make the mourning blessed be- 
cause it called out such comfort.”’ 

This comfort, then, is not a thing of future life alone. 
It belongs to Christian experience on the earth. Christ 
has so enriched and deepened human life that sorrow 
has a new meaning. Long before Jesus it was taught in 
the Book of Job that sorrow and suffering lead to a 
new insight (42:5). A distinguished modern writer 
declares: ‘“‘Those who have had to bear sorrow will 
agree with me that bereavement is the deepest initiation 
into the mystery of human life, an initiation more 
searching and profound than even happy love. Love 
remembered and consecrated by grief belongs, more 
clearly than the happy intercourse of friends, to the 
eternal world. It has proved itself stronger than death.” 

Blessed are the meek. If we recall that these Beatitudes 
are the principles that Jesus exemplified in his own life 
we shall not make the mistake of describing meekness 
as cowardly submission to wrong or a tame endurance 
of injustice. The meek man does have a gentle spirit 
toward those who wrong him, not because he is afraid, 
but because he thinks less of his own pride than of the 
harm that would come from a quarrel. His gentleness 
arises from his pity for the enemy who is blind with 
hate and passion. Thinking less of his own self than 
of the general good he controls his temper. So meekness 
may be defined as self-control. It is the opposite of 
self-assertiveness. Henley’s popular poem Invictus is not 


Christian: 


*T thank whatever gods may be’ 
For my unconquerable soul. 


It matters not how strait the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate. 

I am the captain of my soul.” 


80 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


That is the pagan, hard, and stubborn spirit. It is self 
against the world. It is loud and declamatory. The 
really strong man is quiet, gentle, meek, like Abraham 
Lincoln, who in many ways was like the Master in his 
meekness and lowliness of heart. The whole power to 
possess the earth lies in this gentle strength exemplified 
by Jesus and called by him meekness. 

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness. This Beatitude praises those who strive for the 
goal of goodness, not those who think that they have 
attained it. Indeed, it says, not that they shall attain 
righteousness, but that they shall be satisfied while 
working for it. Paul once said, “I press toward the 
mark.” Struggle for perfection is the admirable thing 
in & man; 


“What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me.” 


It is the struggle that constitutes the real joy of life, 
the race, and not the goal. 
“So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all. 

No sooner the old hope goes to ground 

Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark, 

I shape me— 

Ever 

Removed.” 


If we cease the struggle, accept a lower standard, take 
a lower road to peace, say that Christ’s standard was 
not practical, then we abandon his high enterprise. 
“The Christianity which is not always pioneering in 
the sphere of the impossible, will soon be rejected as 
mere lumber. . . . Where Christ ceases to be a chal- 
lenge to our conscience in every direction, he will soon 
cease to be any kind of comfort to our hearts. . . . We 
are living spiritually on a kind of slope, in which there 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 81 


is no alternative between the fight to move upward 
and the slackness that drifts downward. God quicken 
us into the hunger and thirst after righteousness !”’ 

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 
There are persons who refuse to repeat the Lord’s 
Prayer because they declare they cannot say sincerely: 
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”’ It 
is possible to forgive the wrong and to forget. That is 
to be merciful. Joseph’s brothers conspired against 
him and sold him as a slave into Egypt. In later years 
when he was their superior in every respect he freely 
showed them mercy. In The Atlantic Monthly for April, 
1926, G. H. Palmer calls attention to the “Forgiveness 
of Excuse.’”’ Some friend has done a great wrong. At 
first we do not think it right to show mercy, but as we 
come to know all the circumstances we see that there 
is an excuse; we ourselves would have done the same 
evil under the same conditions. We put ourselves in 
the other man’s place and we have mercy on him. “To 
understand all is to forgive all.’”’ Palmer goes on to 
say, “Truly great minds are charitable. The sublimest 
case of forgiveness recorded ... comes from the 
Cross. ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what 
they do.’” A test of our ability to have mercy is to 
forgive the Germans for their part in the Great War. 
They are entitled to the Forgiveness of Excuse. 

We need to remember what Shakespeare said: ‘‘Con- 
sider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should 


‘see salvation.’”? And mercy is blessed “both to him 


that gives and to him that takes.” God cannot forgive 
the unmerciful man, for there is a hardness in his 
heart that only active love on his own part can remove. 
He must enter into Christ’s plan, be a member of 
Christ’s Kingdom, for that simply means adopting the 


82 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


loving way of life. Blessed are the merciful for they 
have entered into a new life where they also can be 
forgiven. 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 
Blindness is a common defect. We are blind to the 
beauty in the sunset and in the flower. We may live 
for years in the house with a beautiful character and 
fail to perceive through that covering of humility and 
commonplaceness the beauty of the life. We blindly 
walk over and amidst “Acres of Diamonds” year after 
year and miss much of the glory of life. It is a matter of 
insight, a question of the right mental standpoint. One 
must get himself into the correct attitude to life, he 
must occupy the right position in order to see the 
vision. Standing in front of the Cathedral of Notre 
Dame in Paris one sees above the doors a great round 
window of dirty glass, standing within where the light 
comes through that window one sees the stained glass 
shining with glory. So it is with our experience; if you 
take the right attitude you will see God. 

What is the right attitude? This Beatitude has lost 
something of its greatness because we have limited and 
narrowed the meaning of ‘‘pure in heart” to freedom 
from impure desires. It is more than that. It has to 
do with the purpose of a man’s whole life. ‘If thine 
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” 
If the main aim of your life is right, then you can see 
clearly. Sincerity is the great thing. It is the sincer- 
ity of purpose rather than satisfaction in accomplish- 
ment that gives the vision of God. 

“Not on the vulgar mass 


Called work must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 


But all, the world’s coarse thumb 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 83 


And finger failed to plumb, 
So passed in making up the main account; 
All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount.” 


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the 
children of God. Peacemakers are not simply peaceful 
persons but creators of situations in which men work 
together in good-will for the common good. They ac- 
tively promote love in human society. This Beatitude 
has not been taken seriously, otherwise Christian 
churches and our Christian civilization would not be 
what it is. It would seem to exclude from the number 
of the “children of God” all who stir up strife or pro- 
mote war. If this saying of Jesus be taken at par value, 
whisperers, meddlers, tale-bearers, busybodies, tatlers, 
and mischief-makers are not among the children of God. 

What joy would come to this earth if all wars among 
the nations should cease! If religious denominations 
should cease their rivalries and disputes, and the occa- 
sions for jealousy should be removed from the different 
classes of society, a good start would be made toward 
bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to this world. James 
Reid, in a helpful little book, The Key to the Kingdom, 
tells a good story from the life of Robert Louis Steven- 
son. The natives of Samoa wanted to show their 
gratitude to their great friend, and decided to do it by 
building a road from his house to the village. “‘ Nothing 
could have been more symbolic of friendship than this 
removal of obstacles from the path by which he and 
they could come together. They were smoothing the 
way of fellowship. They called the new way the ‘Road 
of the Loving Heart.’ While they were at it, a ship’s 
captain who was visiting the island, asked what they 
were doing. When they told him, his imagination was 


84 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


touched, and he took off his coat saying, ‘I’d like to 
take a hand in this job.’ Surely that is how the work 
of the peacemaker appeals to every Christian mind as 
imagination, in the light of the Kingdom of God, sees 
the glory of bringing men together. To create fellow- 
ship, to remove obstacles from it, that is our business. 
The world is at present like a family without the family 
spirit. Its very intimacy is its peril as it is its oppor- 
tunity.” 

Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ 
sake. Has the world so changed since the time of Jesus 
that the poor in spirit, the meek, those who strive 
steadily for goodness, the merciful, the pure in heart, 
and the peacemakers will no longer be persecuted? Two™ 
things have certainly reduced the amount of persecu- 
tion that Christians suffer. First, the world is better. 
It is better educated, more humane, more sympathetic. 
An international mind has come into being; in all the 
nations there are people who think alike on the great 
questions of life. Second, there is less seeking after 
martyrdom on the part of earnest Christians. In the 
early days some Christians actually desired to win the 
martyr’s crown and went out of their way to invite 
trouble. 

Nevertheless, conditions still exist under which perse- 
cution may arise. The faithful observance of Jesus’ 
directions, however tactfully done, will arouse antago- 
nism on the score of money, race, class distinctions, or 
social habits. Although the old, cruel methods of mak- 
ing people conform or die have passed away, there are 
yet many refined ways of letting Christians know that 
they are too far in advance of their times. But if we 
follow 

“the cross that turns not back” 


ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW IDEALS 85 


we shall often incur opposition and even hatred. We 
shall lose profitable positions, and sacrifice social stand- 
ing; we shall give for other causes money that would 
surround us with luxuries that our neighbors enjoy. 
It is very hard to deny ourselves the approval of the 
public and to endure the scorn of the public, but it is 
a joy to be loyal as our fathers were loyal ou to carry 
on the great Christian tradition. 


5. An Estimate of the Beatitudes. 


Henry Churchill King calls the Beatitudes ‘ Jesus’ 
map of life.’ They are the foundation-stones of the 
new era which Jesus came to inaugurate, they are the 
secret of individual happiness. No man who wishes 
to be what he ought to be can wisely ignore them. In 
these few principles of life Jesus showed that ‘‘He was 
a spiritual creator: like a master architect with a new 
vision of the Kingdom of God on earth, like a master 
musician composing a new song for all mankind to sing, 
like a master artist shaping the perfect man, and also 
the perfect humanity, as God would have them to be”’ 
(Gilkey, Jesus and Our Generation). 

In this vestibule to the Sermon on the Mount with 
its eight wonderful columns Jesus at once reveals the 
spirit and substance of his whole message. Here is love 
at the centre of the world in the person of a Father; 
here the brotherhood of man; here the controlling 
principles of a perfect humanity. One is not to be 
judged by his wealth or social distinction or by his 
knowledge or public office but by the quality of his 
inner life. This creation of the final type of religion was 
the great achievement of Jesus, and he crowned his 
work by exemplifying his principles in his own life. 


86 


(© MONOM woe 


He CO bO 


Noe 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What was the occasion of the Sermon on the Mount? 
. Describe the scene, using Tissot’s Sermon on the Mount. 


Give an outline of the sermon, and commit it to memory. 

When we compare Matthew and Luke, what problem arises 
about the sermon? 

Quote what seem to you the four best Beatitudes. 

What did Jesus mean by “‘the poor in spirit?” 

What did he mean by the ‘‘meek’’? 


. Give an illustration of the new insight that comes to one who 


is ‘pure in heart.” 


. Show that Henley’s Invictus is more pagan than Christian in 


spirit. 
Oral Discussion 


. Tell the life story of one of the Beatitudes from the time it 


was spoken by Jesus until it found a home in the Gospel 
of Matthew. 


. What was the Aramaic language ? 
. Why would the Beatitudes not fit Mussolini’s world ? 
. What is the difference between “peaceful” and “ peace- 


makers?” 
Special Assignments 


. Write a detailed picture of Tissot’s Sermon on the Mount. 
. Read Charles M. Sheldon’s Jn His Steps and select from it 


some suggestion that seems to you revolutionary and yet 
appeals to you as workable and right. 


. Write an essay on the progress made toward universal peace 


since the Great War. 


CHAPTER X 


THE NEW RELIGION CONTRASTED 
WITH THE OLD 


Matthew 5: 17-48; 9: 14-17; Romans 9: 31-10: 13. 


1. A Test of Jesus’ Greatness. 

It has often been asked whether Christianity is the 
final religion. Will another savior arise and establish 
a better faith than Christianity? One reason for be- 
lieving that Christ’s religion is final is its universality. 
Mozoomdar in India wrote in the preface to his 
Oriental Christ that Jesus was to him a perfect savior. 
While some of the forms of Western Christianity would 
not apply well in the East, yet the spirit of Jesus and 
his teachings were perfectly applicable to the Orient. 
Americans, English, French, and Germans, as well as 
Icelanders, North American Indians, and men of all 
races have found that the teachings of Christ satisfied 
their minds. This is so because Jesus dealt with motives, 
with the inner life. However the races of mankind 
may differ, it is only by varied proportions of the same 
elements, and there is no motive or affection to which 
any people can claim a monopoly. There is a path to 
heaven from every clime, and the whole race is a unity 
so far as all great emotions are concerned. Jesus 
brushed aside all peculiar Jewish forms and appealed 
only to those elements which all races share. So his 
religion is absolutely universal. His influence has 
never been limited to any country, group, or race. 
87 


88 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


His teachings have never been outgrown, although 
there have been tremendous changes in the world since 
his day. His ideals still stand far above us, and there is 
reason to believe that Goethe was correct when he said 
mankind will never progress beyond the simple teach- 
ings of Jesus of Nazareth. But even more than princi- 
ples which seem eternal was the fact of Jesus’ person- 
ality. A Madras student, himself not a Christian, stated 
the point exactly in the following words: “I am grateful 
for the story of a man who practised what he preached.” 
_ Jesus’ supreme gift to mankind was his life, which was 
a perfect illustration and embodiment of his principles. 
‘And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 


In loveliness of perfect deeds 
More strong than all poetic thought.” 


When we turn from the Beatitudes, which were an in- 
troduction to the Sermon on the Mount, to the first 
main point of the sermon itself we shall find the secret 
of Jesus’ power. 


2. The Appeal to Motives. 


The first main section of the Sermon on the Mount 
(Matthew 5: 17-48) shows that Jesus’ religion was of 
the heart, not of the outward act. Jesus contrasts the 
old law with his new law item by item. The old law 
had come to mean the literal obeying of hundreds of 
precepts and external requirements. Good Jews were 
so busy going through the forms that they lost the 
inner purpose of those forms. In their effort to keep the 
Sabbath strictly they became hard and hypocritical 
and actually contradicted the very principle of mercy 
for which the day was established (compare Mark 
3:4, 5 with Deuteronomy 5:14), Jesus taught that he 


THE NEW RELIGION AND THE OLD 89 


came not to destroy the good things in the old religion 
but to fulfil the old by adding to it something deeper 
and more important. The goodness which he required 
was much greater than that of the old system (Mat- 
thew 5:20). A man might “keep all the command- 
ments from his youth up” and yet fail to be truly re- 
ligious (Mark 10: 17-22). 

A religion of negative commands might do for chil- 
dren and for the childhood of the race, but not for uni- 
versal mankind through the ages. It was the great 
accomplishment of Jesus to take law off the throne and 
put there the human heart. Man was not made to keep 
a lot of laws, but the laws were made to make men good 
and happy. The Master saw that a religion that was to 
be eternal and universal could not consist of laws handed 
down from an autocrat for a special race, but must con- 
sist of persons living on terms of good-will toward each 
other, under the guidance of a loving Father or a great 
Friend in Heaven. Jesus described religion in terms 
of personal friendship and so made it free from bond- 
age to race, the customs of any one era of world history, 
and from law which leads to evasion and hypocrisy. 
This is why he is winning the world. 

Love was the centre of his religion. He saw a loving 
God at the heart of the universe. To him the great 
problem of religion was how to get men to live the life 
of genuine, intelligent, thoroughgoing good-will. It 
could not be done by force from without, but by some 
powerful appeal from within. So Jesus in his famous 
Sermon makes an appeal to motives. 

The love at the centre of the world is a person who 
is carrying on a wonderful enterprise. He needs the 
loyalty of every individual in the world. Loyalty to 
our great Leader becomes a strong motive, It may be 


90 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


more intense even than patriotism. Patriotism is 
loyalty to country. It is easily aroused. An enemy 
attacks a ship, kills our fellow countrymen. An ap- 
peal is made and thousands offer themselves for self- 
sacrificing service. But such loyalty has distressing 
drawbacks. It means the murder of other human 
beings, and the destruction of property—all because 
of a mistake. Loyalty to love means the abandonment 
of yourself to the highest, utter devotion to the Heaven- 
ly Father, who has a great cause at stake. Loyalty to 
him is a motive that may become as effective as the 
loyalty of a child to a human father, or of a citizen to 
his country. It is this motive which Jesus makes the 
basis of all his appeals in the Sermon (5: 9, 16, 44-48; 
6:1, 4, 6, 14, 15, 18, 25-34; also 6:8, 9; 7: 7-11). 

This motive of loyalty to the Heavenly Father in- 
volves another great motive—self-realization. The 
traitor to his country, Benedict Arnold, proved in the 
outcome to be a traitor to himself. His life in England 
was humiliating and wretched in the extreme. None 
of his ambitions were realized. Loyalty is a central 
principle of our moral life. If it breaks down at one 
point, if disloyalty appears in one member, the whole 
body is weakened. It is a germ of evil that multiplies 
rapidly and soon the whole body is diseased. 

The high hope with which each new generation of 
young people enters upon life is well expressed by Mary 
C. Davies: 


“Not some obscure, grim fate 
Decides the world’s far destiny, or ours. 
Our wills, our hopes, our visions are the powers 
That shape our futures, and the world’s, as well. 
Let us, then, greatly build the invisible 
House of the world’s soul, as we build our own; 
Each thought, each act, a stone,” 


THE NEW RELIGION AND THE OLD 91 


In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus bases many 
appeals on this nobility, unity, and consistency of the 
inner life. How to make the most of self in a world of 
suspicion and hate, of meanness and jealousy, that is 
the problem which Jesus solved. A proper respect and 
love for the Father results in a proper regard for every 
one of the Father’s children, including oneself. This 
precious life that is given to us is a unit. It is not possi- 
ble to serve two masters (6: 22-24); if a man breaks 
the moral law at one point, the whole life is degraded 
(5:19, 29, 30). We think that “we may fall below the 
highest in our love now, and find it meaning the same 
afterward. We can be impure, and still leave our hon- 
esty unaffected. We can be false, and still be pure. 
But we cannot. These demands only voice Jesus’ deep 
conviction, that the very nature of man calls for a 
thoroughgoing consistency in the inner life” (H. C. 
King). 

A third motive to living which pervades the Sermon 
on the Mount has been stated by Harnack as follows: 
“Jesus was the first to bring the value of every human 
soul to light, and what he did no one can any more 
undo.” He taught that anger should be regarded as 
seriously as murder, because to abuse a man and break 
down his self-respect denies his worth. It is an attempt 
to murder his soul. Outside the Sermon Jesus in many 
places exalts human life. Children of the common 
people, women of the streets, men who had lost all 
regard for themselves, were treated by him as of infinite 
worth. We all have an instinct to do this, “but with 
Jesus it was so strong that it determined all his view- 
points and activities. He affirmed the humane instinct 
consciously and intelligently, and raised it to the dig- 
nity of a social principle. This alone would be enough 


92 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


to mark him out as a new type, prophetic, and creative 
of a new development of the race” (Rauschenbusch, 
Social Principles of Jesus). 


3- A Religion that Brings Happiness. 


Jesus showed how the Old Testament law failed? to 
produce happiness (Matthew 5:21-48); it forbade 
murder but did not condemn the anger which led to 
murder. In other words the old religion was defective 
in allowing a great deal of unhappiness to develop 
before it broke out in defiance of the law. Jesus, looking 
at the motives of the heart, saw that the way to remedy 
murder was to make the heart right. And not only 
that—if his plan would work, all those grievances which 
make human life so miserable would be done away and 
universal good-will would secure happiness for all. 

Divorce in the ancient world was a serious cause of 
unhappiness for women and children. In Eastern lands 
to-day thousands of wives are put away by the method 
required in the Old Testament law. In Damascus the 
writer saw a Mohammedan woman who had lived many 
years with her husband seeking to recover about one 
hundred dollars which she had brought to her husband 
as a dowry. The husband had just divorced her with- 
out any process of law by simply telling her to go. 
When these cases multiply and a city becomes filled 
with these divorced women, and children are left with- 
out mothers, social conditions become indescribably 
bad. It was the unhappiness caused by it evidently 
that made Jesus oppose divorce. 

For the old law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for 
a tooth” Jesus substituted the law of love. And in- 
stead of the idea that love should be limited to one’s 
own neighbor or tribe Jesus suggested that there should 


THE NEW RELIGION AND THE OLD 93 


be no limits to their good-will, following the example 
of the Father in heaven who makes his sun rise on the 
evil and on the good. 

The Jews in Jerusalem to-day nate the Arabs and 
recently in a riot between the two-races a score of 
men were killed. Of course the Jews are not the only 
ones guilty of race hatred. But if Jesus’ plan could be 
inaugurated, much of the unhappiness from which man- 
kind now suffers could be eliminated. The Sermon on 
the Mount is the most noteworthy religious document 
ever issued, because it suggests the three motives to a 
life of good-will which are succeeding in civilized lands 
and are likely in the end to transform humanity. 


4. Jesus’ Substitute for the Ten Commandments. 


Even the Ten Commandments were deemed ex- 
ternal and formal by Jesus; when a certain rich young 
ruler (Luke 18: 18-25) declared that he had kept all 
the commandments, Jesus told him that was not suffi- 
cient. Keeping the Ten Commandments would not 
insure unselfishness and other essential virtues of the 
inner life. In place of them the Great Teacher suggested 
two that would include everything necessary—the love 
of God and neighbor. The story of the Good Samaritan 
showed clearly that in Jesus’ vocabulary neighbor 
meant mankind without distinction of race, color, or 
wealth. 

The same story shows that practical life reduces the 
love of God and neighbor to one, viz., the love of neigh- 
bor. The First Epistle of John (4 : 20) states this clearly, 
“Tf a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is 
a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? ”’ 
So it turns out that all those motives to the good life 


94 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


which Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount may be 
fused into one—service to mankind. As love to God is 
shown by service to man, so self-realization, “real self- 
advancement for the individual—the only kind of 
personal advancement that will harmonize with social 
welfare and that will win cordial acquiescence, and per- 
haps honor, of one’s fellows—is that which is won 
through service. . . . Survey the great names of civiliza- 
tion; and in proportion as those names are lastingly 
great and recognized to-day as truly worthy of honor, 
is 1t not because of their services to men? Two main 
paths to greatness have been found hitherto—that of 
selfish domination and that of contribution to the com- 
mon good. The path trodden by Cesar and Constan- 
tine, Attila and Genghis Khan, Frederick and Napoleon, 
is certainly not to be denied; but neither is that fol- 
lowed by Saint Paul and Saint Francis, Galileo, and 
Newton, Pasteur and Lister, Michael Angelo and 
Beethoven, etc. Even among the men of arms those 
are held highest in honor by mankind with whom the 
cause bulked larger than the ambition—Charlemagne 
and Cromwell, Washington and Wellington, and their 
like” (Cooley, The Aim of Jesus). 

And in connection with this thought of individual 
service Jesus implied, throughout the Sermon, the 
answer to the greatest problem of human society, 
mutual service. ‘This is the teaching of the Golden Rule. 
Modern business houses are winning the approval of 
mankind and at the same time increasing their divi- 
dends by adopting the Golden Rule as a motto and 
actually practising the principle of mutual service. 


THE NEW RELIGION AND THE OLD 95 


5. Does the New Religion Make Life too Easy? 


This talk of the love of God and man and of self- 
realization through loving service to others may seem 
false to the hard realities of life. Love may seem less 
stern than law, less exacting. The truth is that love is 
the more exacting, and offended love causes greater 
suffering than offended law. “There is a depth of 
sorrow, which can only be known to a soul that has 
loved the most perfect thing and beholds itself fallen.” 
To lose the love of friend, to deeply grieve a mother’s 
heart is worse than to break any external law. Judas 
committed an offense against love, and “‘he went and 
hanged himself.” 

The terrible thing about love in the new religion is 
that we may kill it. It is possible for us to break those 
strands that draw us upward toward God, and the 
hell that we then fall into is worse than any physical 
hell could be. The new religion is truer to life than the 
old, but its love when offended is more terrible than any 
law. Christianity has its hell. ‘‘The place has been 
painted as a place of fires. But when we contemplate 
that men come to it with the holiest flames in their 
nature quenched, we shall justly feel that it is rather 
a dreary waste of ash and cinder, strewn with snow— 
some ribbed and frosted Arctic zone, silent in death, 
for there is no life there because there is no love, and 
no love because men in rejecting or abusing her have 
slain their own power ever again to feel her presence.” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


1. Give a reason for the universal appeal of Jesus. 

2. What was his supreme gift to mankind? Quote Tennyson. 

3. Give two or more examples from the Sermon on the Mount 
of Jesus’ emphasis on motives rather than outward acts. 


96 


COM or 


= Oo bb = 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


. What did Jesus make the centre of his religion? Best modern 


word for it? 
What has Jesus to say on making the most of one’s self? | 


. Contrast our ordinary view of the worth of human life with 


that of Jesus. 


. Illustrate the way in which Jesus’ religion produced happiness. 
. Jesus’ substitute for the Ten Commandments. 


Oral Discussion 


. What evidence have we that there is ‘‘a path to heaven from 


every clime”’ ? 


. Why did Jesus lay stress on the old law although he was super- 


seding it? 


. What is the advantage of describing religion in terms of 


personal friendship with God? 


. Give examples of recent attempts on the part of large business 


concerns to put the Golden Rule into practice. 


Special Assignments 


- Read Mozoomdar’s Oriental Christ and write a report on it 


for the class. 


. What is the difference between divorce in the Christian and 


Mohammedan religions? 


. Describe Tissot’s The Prodigal’s Return, and show the con- 


trast in thought between it and Michael Angelo’s Moses. 


CHAPTER XI 


A NEW MEANING IN PRAYER 


Mark 1:35; 6:46; 7:34; 9:29; 11:24, 25; 12:40; 13:33; 
14:35. Matthew 6:9-13. I Thessalonians{5: 17, 18. 


1. A Secret Source of Strength. 


In the prelude to Lohengrin one of the strains of 
music is repeated again and again and the listener 
learns to wait for its recurrence. It is what gives inter- 
est and power to the composition. So in the lives of 
great men there are certain notes of power that dis- 
tinguish them from others. A hidden source of power 
in the life of Jesus is revealed by incidental references 
in the Gospel of Mark. A dozen times at least Mark 
says this or an equivalent: “Then early in the morning, 
long before daylight, he got up and went away out to 
a lonely spot. He was praying there when Simon and 
his companions hunted him out and discovered him” 
(1:35, 36). One explanation, then, of Jesus’ strength 
and calmness and final victory was his habit of prayer. 
One Gospel records that when he prayed heaven opened 
and God talked with him (Luke 3:21, 22). Without 
regard to place or time or special attitude Jesus was in 
the habit of “lifting his eyes to heaven” (Mark 7: 34) 
and thus gained reinforcement of power. 

This was really a hidden source of strength. The 
casual reader of Mark would not notice that prayer 
had been mentioned. Jesus rarely spoke of it or recom- 
mended it to others. He objected when any one made 
a show of prayer, preferring that it should be done in 

97 


98 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


secret. His petitions were usually sentence prayers, 
and he evidently thought that they should not ‘be 
long (Mark 12: 40) and that they should not be talked 
about. 


2. Jesus Did Not Originate Prayer. 


Jesus’ great accomplishment with respect to prayer 
was to make it spiritual. Prayer is as old as mankind. 
As Thomas Carlyle said, it is “the native and deepest 
impulse of the soul of man.” We have Egyptian, 
Babylonian, Hebrew, and Greek prayers, long antedat- 
ing the time of Christ. Some of the best of these an- 
cient petitions are found in Babylonia. For example, 
Nebuchadrezzar prayed to his god Marduk as follows: 


O Eternal Prince! Lord of all being! 
As for the king whom thou lovest, and 
Whose name thou hast proclaimed 

As was pleasing to thee, 

Do thou lead aright his life, 

Guide him in a straight path. 


According to thy grace, O Lord, 

Which thou dost bestow on all people, 
Cause me to love thy supreme dominion, 
And create in my heart 

The worship of thy godhead, 

And grant whatever is pleasing to thee, — 
Because thou hast fashioned my life. 


Almost all ancient prayers have two faults: they are 
supplications for physical blessings and they are magi- 
cal. The repetitions of sacred formulas, oftentimes by 
a hired priest, were thought to bring about the desired 
answer, as the nickel in the slot brings results. Jesus 
. did for prayer what he did for religion in general, he 
took the unreality out of it and made it a personal re- 
lation with God, a genuine communion with him, 


A NEW MEANING IN PRAYER 99 


3. A Criticism of Jewish Prayers. 


The parable in Luke 18: 9-14 is an example of Jesus’ 
thought about the matter. He told this story to cer- 
tain persons who were sure of their own goodness and 
looked down on everybody else. Two men were pray- 
ing in the temple. One, a Pharisee, thanked God that 
he was not like the common run of men; the other, a 
tax-gatherer, did not have confidence enough to lift 
his eyes to heaven, but beating on his breast said, ‘““O 
God, have mercy on me for my sins.” The tax-gatherer 
rather than the proud man was acceptable to God. 
Thus Jesus showed one necessary attitude, the humble 
reaching up of the heart toward heaven with a feeling 
of dependence and a sense of unworthiness. As George 
MacDonald once wrote: 

‘My soul leans toward him; stretches out its arms, 
And waits expectant. Speak to me, my God; 


And let me know the living Father cares 
For me, even me; for this one of his children.” 


Long, unreal prayers (Mark 12:40), such as we often 
hear in church to-day, formal mumbled petitions of 
which the modern synagogue is too often guilty, the 
prayer-wheels of the Buddhists, and the counting of 
beads by the Romanists are condemned by the spirit 
of Jesus. 

True prayer is most often a private, secret thing, a 
transaction between the soul and God. It is often in- 
tense, the highest energy of which the soul is capable. 
Words may not be spoken, but the contemplation of 
lofty thought, the concentration of the mind on high 
purposes, the communion with the Infinite is a task 
that calls out the best in man. In solitary struggle we 
learn by heart what in public we may calmly repeat. 
In prayer in Gethsemane Jesus learned to say, “Father 


100 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This 
private prayer was carried on in the most public places 
by the Master (Mark 6:41 and 7:34). Robert Nichols 
suggests that God may be met in the most unlikely 
places by those who understand. 
“There is somewhere a Secret Garden, which none hath seen 
In a place apart 


But amid the bramble-bound world, the thicket, the screen 
To the understanding of heart.”’ 


4. The Community Prayer. 

It was achievement enough for any of the world’s 
great men to formulate a prayer which for nineteen 
hundred years should be used in all civilized countries. 
His social prayer, or disciples’ prayer, the favorite form 
of which is found in Matthew 6: 9-138, is so universal 
that one who could not repeat it in some language 
might be called illiterate. Jesus’ disciples needed in- 
struction in prayer (Luke 11:1), so he gave them this 
form, parts of which were in use in the synagogues of 
his day. One part, however, was new, and that the 
most difficult part for honest men to use in praying: 


Forgive us our debts 

As we have forgiven our debtors. 
This remarkable couplet makes it incumbent on those 
who use the Lord’s Prayer to forgive their enemies be- 
fore they pray. The words ‘‘Our Father” at the be- 
ginning of the prayer show that it was meant for a 
community or group and its unifying value has been 
very great. Protestants, Greeks, and Roman Catholics, 
French, Germans, English, Russians, and Americans 
have in one assembly, with a real sense of brotherhood, 
repeated together this prayer. 


‘So many roads lead up to God 
’Twere strange if any soul should miss them all,” 


A NEW MEANING IN PRAYER 101 


No one should seek occasion to deny that each race in 
its own way may find God as he is revealed “in what 
he has made” (Acts 17:27 and Romans 1: 20), but it 
is a joy to see many different races and religions unite 
at one time and place in a common prayer. An eye- 
witness of the opening of the Parliament of Religions 
in Chicago in 1893 says that the emotions of the partici- 
pants were almost overpowering when men and women 
of ten religions and representatives of many tribes, 
kindreds, and tongues, having sung “Praise God from 
whom all blessings flow, ’”’ were led by Cardinal Gibbons, 
without previous plan or intention, in repeating to- 
gether: 


Our Father who art in heaven, 
Hallowed be thy name. 
Thy kingdom come. 
Thy will be done 

On earth, as it is in heaven. 


Give us this day our daily bread; 
And forgive us our debts, 
As we forgive our debtors; 
And lead us not into temptation, 
But deliver us from evil. 


Jesus did much for the success of this prayer by giving 
it a rhythmical form and a simplicity of structure very 
easy to remember. It is built of Hebrew poetical 
parallelisms which make up a lyric poem of two stanzas 
with five lines in each stanza. The first stanza is for 
the community, a prayer for the coming of the kingdom; 
the second is for the individual, a prayer for daily help, 
and forgiveness, and leadership that shall keep us out 
of danger. 


102 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


5. A Teaching of Jesus that Makes the Christian 
Idea of Prayer Reasonable. 

A dramatic presentation of this teaching of Jesus 
which makes prayer so natural is found in Mark 4: 35- 
41. One evening, as Jesus was crossing the sea in a boat 
with his disciples, a heavy squall of wind overtook them 
and the waves splashed into the boat, so that it was 
filling with water and seemed likely to sink. The wind 
was so violent that the disciples felt helpless. Jesus 
had fallen asleep on the seat in the stern, and so tired 
was he after the work of the day that neither the toss- 
ing of the boat, the roaring of the wind, nor the shout- 
ing of the men awakened him. In their alarm the men 
aroused Jesus, saying fretfully, “‘Teacher, are we to 
drown, for all you care?”’ Then Jesus said to the wind 
and the waves, ‘‘Peace, be still,”” and to the disciples 
he said, ‘Why are you afraid like this? Have you no 
faith yet?” 

Faith was the secret of his peace and his power, and 
it explained the naturalness and frequency of his 
prayers. It was the sense of God’s presence and sur- 
render of self to God with perfect trust. Why should he 
or the disciples be troubled? The work was God’s, 
they were God’s; God would not let anything happen 
that would injure them or defeat his great purpose. 
While we cannot explain the physical happenings, we 
do know that the decisive thing was Jesus’ faith. 

This was Jesus’ great gift to mankind: God is present 
in flower, bird, little child, and in every event, great or 
small. We may pray to the ever-present and, all- 
powerful and loving Father at any time, in any place. 
Jesus has bequeathed to us the sure belief that God is 
good, and right, and just. On this sense of God’s 
presence and justice millions of men have based their 


A NEW MEANING IN PRAYER 103 


lives and made their great decisions. Without it the 
career of Lincoln and many of his great words, such as 
the following, would have been impossible: ‘With 
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish 
the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for 
his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves 
and with all nations.” 


6. Prayer and Work. 


The practical nature of Jesus’ religion is shown by 
his emphasis on human co-operation in prayer. When 
he sought God’s help in healing he asked the sick person 
to do his part. In the first incident of the sort which 
Mark reports (3: 1-5), Jesus said to the man with a 
withered hand, ‘Rise and come forward . . . stretch 
forth your hand.’”’ When he fed the five thousand 
people (Mark 6:38), he let the folks furnish what food 
they had on hand. If one prays for forgiveness, he 
must do his part by. forgiving others (Mark 11:25). 
Prayer, then, is not simply getting things from God, 
but entering into a frame of mind where one can work 
with God. 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Give evidences that Jesus made practical use of prayer. 

. What part has prayer played in the history of mankind? 

. Tell the story of the Pharisee and tax-gatherer who prayed 
in the temple. What was Jesus’ criticism? 

Give an example of the social value of the Lord’s Prayer. 

. Tell the story of the calming of the storm in Mark 4: 35-41. 

. Give a definition of faith. 

. Show from examples that Jesus believed that men had some- 

thing to do in prayer. 

. Give a definition of prayer. 


O NOOR wre 


104 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


OF WNe 


Oral Discussion 


. Do men need to use any special form when they pray? 


What forms have proved helpful to many? 


. Do we, like ancient peoples, as the Egyptians, pray too rauch 


for physical blessings ? 


. Explain how prayer may become a task. 
. Why does the prayer-wheel of India fail to be true prayer? 


Special Assignments 


. Quote Tennyson’s estimate of prayer near the end of his poem 


entitled Morte D’ Arthur. 


. Read the chapter on ‘The Naturalness of Prayer” in Harry 


Emerson Fosdick’s The Meaning of Prayer, and give ex- 
amples of the universality of prayer. 


. Study Hofmann’s painting, Christ in Gethsemane, and note in | 


his face of Christ signs of mental effort. Write a descrip- 
He See remarkable picture. See Bailey, The Gospel in 
rt, f 


CHAPTER XII 


THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD MONEY 


Mark 10: 17-27; Matthew 6: 25-34; Luke 16: 19-31; 
Philippians 3: 7, 8. 


1. An Object-lesson. 


After Jesus had left Galilee for the last time and was 
passing through Perea on his way to Jerusalem, there 
appeared in the group that followed him a rich young 
man who was evidently greatly attracted by the Master. 
In his hearing Jesus told the Parable of the Rich Man 
and His Barns (Luke 12:16-31), closing with the 
words, “Thou foolish one, this night shall thy soul be 
required of thee.” Rauschenbusch says concerning 
this (Social Principles of Jesus, 118): “To Jesus the 
fat farmer was a tragic comedy. In the first place, an 
unseen hand was waiting to snuff out his candle. To 
plan life as if it consisted in an abundance of material 
wealth is something of miscalculation in a world where 
death is part of the scheme of things. In the second 
place, Jesus saw no higher purpose in the man’s aim 
and outlook to redeem his acquisitiveness. The man 
was a sublimated chipmunk, gloating over bushels of 
pignuts.”’ 

Now the rich young man was deeply moved by the 
fate of the wealthy landowner as pictured in this 
parable and earnestly asked Jesus about his own life. 
Hofmann’s Christ and the Rich Young Man contributes 
much to our appreciation of the scene. Jesus and the 
young man are standing face to face, while in the 

105 


106 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


background are two poor people, one of them helpless 
with disease. Jesus is offering an opportunity of a 
career in which the young man could win eternal life 
by giving up luxury and serving the poor and oppressed. 
The face of the young man shows refinement; his whole 
bearing is that of one who has conscientiously kept 
those commandments which his religion required. His 
rich garments are attractive. It is no wonder that Jesus 
“loved him” and saw in him one who could become a 
valuable leader. Perhaps in him the world lost another 
Paul. 

Here, also, is an example of what Jesus meant by 
the “deceitfulness of riches.” The youth was irreso- 
lute but finally decided against Jesus. He had obeyed 
the Law, and he would continue in the same path of 
superficial goodness, but to give up his inherited wealth, 
abandon the comforts of his home, and follow Jesus 
along the path of self-denial was too big a thing. Jesus 
turned on the young man a gaze that searched his very 
soul, according to Hofmann’s interpretation. 


2. A Modern Parallel. 


Professor Francis G. Peabody of Harvard has drawn 
a parallel to the rich young man. “It is a situation 
familiar in modern life. A young man, well born and 
well bred, winsome and gallant, is withheld from the 
effective use of his life by the weight of his possessions. 
If he could only forget that he was rich and give him- 
self to strenuous work he might do gallant service. If 
some dramatic summons, like that of an actual war, is 
heard by him, the follies of his luxury and self-indul- 
gence drop away from him, and he becomes the most 
enduring and daring of soldiers. Meantime, however, 
here he is, with hardly a fair chance for a useful life, 


THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD MONEY 107 


turning play into work, and sinking into a false and 
foolish estimate of life and happiness. What hope is 
there for such a young man except through some radical 
change, curative though cruel, like the surgeon’s knife? 
It was thus that Jesus, loving the young ruler, de- 
manded much of him; and one can imagine the loving 
pity with which Jesus, when the young man shrank 
from the only operation which could save him, looked 
around about and saith unto his disciples, ‘How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of 
God.’” 


3. The Prominence of Money in the Teachings of 
Jesus. 


John Ruskin said: “Have you observed that all 
Christ’s main teachings, by direct order, by earnest 
parable, and by his own permanent emotion, regard the 
use and the misuse of money? We might have thought, 
if we had been asked what a divine teacher was most 
likely to teach, that he would have left inferior persons 
to give directions about money; and himself spoken 
only concerning faith and love, and the discipline of 
the passions, and the guilt of the crimes of soul against 
soul. But not so.... The two most intense of all 
the parables; the two which lead the rest in love and 
terror (that of the Prodigal and Dives) relate, both of 
them, to management of riches. The practical order 
given to the only seeker of advice of whom it is re- 
corded that Christ ‘loved him’ is briefly about his 
property, ‘Sell that thou hast.’” 

The reason for this emphasis on money is because 
the love of it is the root of all evil. Jesus knew life, 
because he had spent almost all his years as a business 
man. His occupation as a carpenter threw him inti- 


108 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


mately into the company of laboring men. But his 
ability and the incidental references to building (Luke 
14 : 30, etc.) and many of his parables lead us to believe 
that he was a master builder. He had seen the selfish- 
ness and arrogance of the rich as well as the weakness 
of the poor. It was money that explained more than 
any other one thing the bad conditions of life about 
him. 

We too know that this instinct of possession is less 
subject to control even than that of sex. It was a true 
insight on the part of Jesus that made him pronounce 
forgiveness on the adulteress and condemnation on 
Dives. The passion for wealth eats up all the energies, 
once it gets the best of a man. He values people ac- 
cording to the amount of money they have. When the 
love of money dominates society, marriages are ar- 
ranged for it, politics run for it, and wars are begun for 
it. Creative, artistic, and intellectual impulses are 
shouldered aside, fall asleep, or die of inanition. Prop- 
erty is intended to secure freedom of action and self- 
development; but, in fact, it often chains men and clips 
their wings. (See Rauschenbusch’s chapter on “ Prop- 
erty and the Common Good”? in his The Social Princi- 
ples of Jesus.) 


4. Luke’s Emphasis on the Sympathy of Jesus for the 
Poor. 

Jesus was so great a personality that no one writer 
could see all his qualities at once. Mark, Matthew, and 
Luke each describes something that impressed him 
most. Mark, under the influence of the preaching of 
Peter, gives us a vivid account of the deeds—wonderful 
deeds—of Jesus. Matthew puts to the front the teach- 
ings of the Master. Luke is filled with descriptions of 


THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD MONEY 109 


Jesus’ sympathy for the poor. He pictures the birth 
of Christ in a manger, the sacrifice of two young pigeons 
by his parents, which was the offering of the poor; in 
Jesus’ first sermon it is said that he came to preach the 
gospel to the poor (4: 16-20); all property is to be 
given up if one is to be an apostle of Christ (14: 33); 
several of the parables deal with the poor (14:16; 
16:19). 

It is interesting to note that in his report of the 
Sermon on the Mount Luke says, ‘‘ Blessed are ye poor,”’ 
where Matthew has, ‘‘Blessed are the poor in spirit”; 
“Blessed are ye that hunger now,” omitting ‘‘after 
righteousness”; to Matthew’s injunction, “Love your 
enemies,’”’ Luke adds the significant words ‘‘and lend 
without expecting any return” (6:35). Luke writes, 
“Woe to the rich”’ (6: 24). 


5. Answer to Criticisms of Jesus’ Position. 


Two criticisms of Jesus have been made at this point. 
One, that he advised against wealth on the mistaken 
ground that the world was soon coming to an end (see 
Mark 13); the other, that he underestimated the im- 
portance of capital. It has been thought that Jesus, 
along with the other leaders of his generation, did not 
foresee the need of capital to care for the complex in- 
dustrial, educational, and benevolent enterprises that 
would in the distant future become an important part 
of the growing Kingdom of God. 

But we have many sayings and parables from him 
that do apply to an advanced society. His principles 
are helping rich and poor co-operate and enabling men 
to use accumulated wealth and collective intelligence 
in such a way that the unpleasant feeling of inferiority 
and inequality arises less and less in the minds of labor. 


110 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Jesus did not condemn the possession of wealth and 
private property. On the other hand he assumed that 
it would continue (Luke 16: 10-12). It is not by giving 
up property (except in the case of the apostles) that 
a man pleases God, but by using property in the right 
way. Also he believed in the inequality of the amount 
of property possessed by different men. The Parable 
of the Talents illustrates that point (Matthew 25: 14— 
30). 

Nowhere did Jesus condemn a man for being happy 
with his money. He went to feasts given by well-to-do 
people. He praised a woman at Bethany for her lavish 
gift of ointment (Mark 14:3-9). “Music, feasts, 
splendors, flowers, these were not vanities with him to 
be avoided” (Matthew 22: 1-14; 25: 1-13). The vast 
majority of the teachings of Jesus, including all of the 
Sermon on the Mount and nearly all of the parables, 
bear testimony against the charge that Jesus believed 
that the world was soon going to end. The Parable of 
the Mustard Seed predicts that the Kingdom will fill 
the earth. The Beatitudes and the New Law in 
Matthew, chapters five to seven, are given evidently for 
a world that is going to continue, not for one that is 
soon to end. 

It was because money was so abused that he gave 
the warning. He knew that from childhood we are all 
“besieged with every inducement to make the accumu- 
lation of material goods the chief object of desire.” 
He saw on every hand selfish and indolent indulgence 
on the part of the rich. He condemned any one who 
did not work—produce something for the benefit’ of 
society, the servant (Matthew 25:30) as well as Dives 
(Luke 16:23). His startling words in Matthew 6: 19— 
21, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,” are 


THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD MONEY 111 


limited by the parallel words, ‘‘But lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven.” Riches stored up enable one to 
gratify selfish desires, and he saw that the practice of 
this by the wealthy was almost universal. So he threw 
out this warning against laying up treasures in strong 
language, but if one could lay up treasures in heaven 
and also accumulate the means of giving suppers to 
the poor and caring for injured travellers (Luke 10:35), 
there was no objection to that. We know that wealth 
interferes seriously with friendships. The higher scale 
of living adopted by one who has acquired money makes 
it impossible for his old friend to continue friendly. 
Pride creeps in when the rich man receives the adula- 
tions of subordinates and admirers and he loses that 
sense of dependence on God and human friends which 
is essential to that gratitude which every spiritual man 
must have. 

Wealth is still the chief enemy of genuine spiritual 
life. When a man gains riches there comes the sense of 
power to inflict social or financial punishment on those 
who oppose him. This is done everywhere, and wide- 
spread ruin of character and happiness ensues. Poor 
people do not feel at home with the rich and the sense 
of brotherhood is broken up. To gain this means of 
power over others men sacrifice honor and friends. - 
It shows ignorance of human society in every age to say 
that Jesus spoke too seriously of the dangers of wealth. 

We who seek to apply Jesus’ teachings to our own 
lives should remember that this choicest life that was 
ever lived had a humble origin and was content with a 
humble occupation. He was a working man, or a master 
workman on a small scale, and spent his life in one 
little city. He was a friend of the common man. If he 
ever acquired a competence for himself and his mother, 


112 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


it was by hard labor. Lincoln, who has been called the 
best man that ever lived, next to Jesus Christ, was for a 
long time a common workman. Is that not the best 
environment for great and good men to grow in? 


oak 


© ON OM BR wW NH = 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Tell the Parable of the Rich Man and His Barns, Luke 12: 16- 


31. 
. Give Rauschenbusch’s interpretation of it as a “tragic 


comedy.” 


- What does Hofmann’s painting, Christ and the Rich Young 


Man contribute to our understanding of the situation? 


. What do modern young men need who are weighted down by 


their wealth? 
Why did Jesus so often speak of money? 
eee gospel gives largest attention to the poor? State evi- 
ence. 
What two criticisms of Jesus’ idea of wealth have been made? 
Give examples to show that Jesus did not condemn private 
property or inequality of the amount of property. 


. How do you know that Jesus believed in happiness? 


Oral Discussion 


. Was Ruskin correct when he said that all Christ’s main teach- 


ings are concerned with money? 


. Are wars begun for money? Some reasons for and against the 


suggestion. 


. Why is it natural that the “‘master iniquities of our time” 


should be connected with money-making? See Ross in 
Rauschenbusch, Social Principles of Jesus, p. 126. 


. Meaning of the phrase ‘‘deceitfulness of riches.’ 
. Why has the church not adopted Jesus’ attitude toward 


riches? 


. Why do the labor-unions condemn our churches? 


Special Assignments 


. Report on the differences between Luke on the one hand, 


and Matthew and Mark on the other, respecting the dis- 
cussion of money. ' 


- Look up Paul’s letters to find his references to money? Why 


so few? 


. Write an abstract of Rauschenbusch, Social Principles of Jesus, 


124-128. 


CHAPTER XIII 


JESUS AND THE RACE PROBLEM 
Mark 7 : 24-30; Luke 7: 1-10; Romans 2: 6-29; Colossians 3: 11. 


1. Lessons from a Samaritan and a Zulu. 


A bright lawyer among the Jews one day asked Jesus 
this question to test his ability, ‘‘What shall I do to 
inherit eternal life?’’ Jesus replied, “What is written 
in the law?’’ When the man replied that love to God 
and neighbor is required, Jesus told him to obey that 
and he would have eternal life. But the lawyer wishing 
to quibble asked Jesus what he meant by neighbor. 
Jesus thought of a way to give a sharp rebuke which was 
well deserved by telling the following story, which, next 
to the Prodigal Son, is the most famous in the world. 
Read Luke 10 : 30-37, in which Jesus showed the lawyer 
how a Samaritan proved himself a neighbor to a 
wounded Jew while a Jewish priest and a Jewish Levite 
left the wounded man in the gutter. 

An officer of the British Army with his company of 
soldiers was on duty in South Africa watching a hostile 
Zulu tribe. One day a Zulu came toward the British 
camp carrying a flag of truce. By mistake he was shot 
by a British soldier. Immediately the officer in charge 
walked toward the Zulu village unarmed and offered 
himself to the chief, saying, ‘‘One of my soldiers has 
shot a Zulu by mistake. You may do with me what you 
will.” The Zulu chief looked at him for a moment and 
said, “‘You area man. We also are men. You have ex- 

113 


114 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


plained, and we bear no grudge. You shall return safely 
to your camp.” Thus the Samaritan and the Zulu have 
taught us the lesson we need to learn that no race has a 
monopoly of nobility. 


2. Jesus’ One Trip among Foreigners. : 


Only once did Jesus go outside the borders of his own 
little country. Mark records that he went into the re- 
gion of Tyre in Pheenicia. It would seem that he wished 
his whereabouts to be unknown until the opposition 
to him in Galilee had quieted down. 

Here a scene took place which is an example of Jesus’ 
purpose to give his whole time to the Jewish people. 
A Greek woman asked him to cast a demon out of her 
daughter. His strange reply was, “It is not meet to 
take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs,” 
meaning that his mission was to the Jews and not to 
the Gentiles. It is said that the word “dogs” is not as 
harsh as it seems, for it means “little dogs.” But the 
woman was quick-witted and answered, “But the dogs 
under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” Her 
reply was so apt and the woman was so anxious that 
Jesus could not resist his inclination to help her, so he 
healed her daughter. Matthew adds to the story the 
following remark of Jesus, “I was not sent except to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15: 24), 


3. The Wisdom of Jesus’ Method. 


We cannot know what was in Jesus’ mind concerning 
this matter, except the implication in Mark 7:27 that 
it was important first of all to give the Gospel message 
to the Jews. This is supported by Matthew 15: 24. But 
apart from any evidence from Jesus himself there are 
two excellent arguments in favor of his method. First, 


JESUS AND THE RACE PROBLEM 115 


it was necessary to train a group of his own people so 
thoroughly that they could carry on Christianity after 
the Crucifixion. And the event justified his method. 
For it was Jews that began Christianity, and it is highly 
probable that Christianity would never have been 
started if Jesus had scattered his efforts among many 
nations. 

Second, there is another important consideration 
which shows that his method was the only sound one. 
Each race, especially when that race has for centuries 
maintained a national existence in one country, is 
different from all others in many ways and therefore has 
its own mission to perform in the world. It differs in 
inheritance, history, institutions, philosophy, religion, 
literature, and art. Such a nation, great or small, has 
something to contribute to the progress of mankind, 
otherwise it would not have survived in the struggle for 
existence. During the Great War James Bryce called 
attention to the importance of preserving the inde- 
pendence of small nations, of which Belgium was an 
example, because, like ancient Greece, they might have 
some wonderful benefit to confer on mankind. Jesus 
was right from every point of view in concentrating his 
efforts on the Jews. It is generally conceded that they 
were best fitted religiously and morally to prepare the 
way for Christianity, and furnish the soil in which it 
might rapidly grow. 


4. Evidences that Christianity Was for All Races. 


While Jesus’ plan of limiting his work to his own race 
was necessary, yet there are many suggestions in the 
Gospels and in Paul’s letters that his teachings and his 
personal attitude were favorable to a universal religion. 

Paul was the first man to write extensively about 


116 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Jesus, and in one of his first letters he says that God 
called him for the furtherance of Jesus’ cause to preach 
the Gospel to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:15, 16). A 
little later he declared that in Christianity there was 
neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian or Scythian, slave 
nor freeman—all were equal before God (Colossians 
3:11). Again he clearly states that Christ destroyed 
the barrier which kept the races apart (Colossians 3: 
11). Paul was a thoroughgoing Jew and the greatest 
interpreter that Jesus ever had; it is not likely that 
he made a mistake when he said that Jesus came to all 
the world and not to his own race alone. 

The best evidence of the breadth of Jesus is found in 
the principles which he taught. Not one of them has 
a racial limitation. In the Sermon on the Mount which 
contains most of his fundamental teachings there is a 
universal note in every paragraph. If you add to that 
the parables of the Leaven, Mustard Seed, and Good 
Samaritan (see Matthew 13 and Luke 10) you have 
clear testimony that his spirit and his teachings were 
as broad as mankind. 

Matthew’s Gospel, which is supposed to be the most 
Jewish of all says, ‘Go, and make disciples of all 
nations” (28:19). Luke, in reporting the birth of 
Jesus, declares that the good tidings of great joy were 
meant for all people (2:10). In Acts 10: 34, 35 we read, 
“Peter opened his mouth and said, ‘Of a truth I per- 
ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every 
nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness 
is accepted with him.’”’ All through the New Testament 
the Roman centurions are spoken of with respect, and 
in one case Jesus said that the Roman had faith su- 
perior to that of any Jew that he had known. 

It is therefore clear that those who charge that Jesus 
intended his Gospel for the Jews are mistaken, for 


JESUS AND THE RACE PROBLEM 117 


those who knew Jesus best proceeded to preach the 
gospel to Romans, Ethiopians, Greeks, and within 
twenty years after his death large churches had been 
built in his name in Macedonia, Greece, Italy. These 
churches had many non-Jews in their membership. 
While his method was to establish his religion on a 
firm basis among the Jews, who were the best fitted of 
all races to receive the new religion, yet Jesus must have 
known that by its own inner propulsion Christianity 
was bound to go out into all the world. That such a 
religion should originate among the Jews and win the 
world is clearly taught in Isaiah 42: 1—9, and in other 
parts of the same book. It is impossible to conceive 
that Jesus had not caught this vision. So there rises 
before our minds the image of our great Master, who 
not only had the teachings that would save the world, 
but had the wisdom to adopt the right method of 
starting those teachings on their universal saving 
mission. 


5. What Jesus Has Accomplished toward the Settle- 
ment of the Race Problem. 


He has inspired men like Paul and Barnabas to 20 
into every nation and win individuals to the Christ 
ideal. Augustine in North Africa, Columba in Ireland, 
Boniface in England, Booker T. Washington at Tuske- 
gee Institute, Ebena in Japan, Loyola in Spain—all 
have been converted to the Christian programme and 
with sincerity and success have given their lives to the 
promotion of Christianity. This proves that race is no 
barrier to our religion and that individuals are essen- 
tially the same in any nation. 

“But Cs, is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor 
irth, 


When two strong men stand face to face, tho they come from the 
ends of the earth.” 


118 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


The first task has been the winning of individuals 
and groups of individuals in every nation. These al- 
ready form a world society permeated by the spirit of 
justice, sympathy, and good-will. In this way race 
divisions have already in principle been transcended. 
The ideal of the Kingdom of God is cherished by multi- 
tudes in every race. This spiritual influence toward the 
unity of mankind is strengthened by commerce, by art, 
and by science, which are universal. 


6. An Objection. 


As men of different races have come into contact in 
the same city, even Christians have found it difficult 
to love all men, as one loves father or brother. But 
that is not what Christ meant by love. The word that 
Jesus used signifies “good-will,” or “willingness to 
help.” In this sense it is easy to love all in our midst, 
because no Christian would care to bear ill-will toward 
any group. Moreover, our task is to teach that God 
loves them, not that we like them. 

God loves them, and we should have good-will toward 
them, not for what they are now, but for what they 
may become. Our love of other races is not to be 
founded on an absurd and impossible effort to control 
our instinctive feelings but on the humanity in them 
with its divine possibilities. 


7- Illustrations of the Value of Preserving Racial 
Differences. 


As differences among individuals make a more inter- 
esting and successful family, State, and nation, so 
differences in race will be a factor in producing a more 
wonderful world. It is differences within the whole 
that make the harmony so effective in music. So in 


JESUS AND THE RACE PROBLEM 119 


civilization the nations and races should preserve their 
distinctive peculiarities, for the ideal world which 
Christ has inspired Christians to build is a co-operative 
achievement. As our present civilization has been built 
up by English, French, Americans, Germans, Russians, 
Italians, and all the others, not by suppressing their 
differences but by contributing to the whole just those 
peculiar racial characteristics, so the perfect Christian 
civilization is to be built by continuing the same plan 
of diversity in unity. 

Examples of the value of this co-operation are on 
every hand. Charles Stelzle, who is contributing so 
much to the improvement in American social condi- 
tions, especially in New York, is of German parentage. 
Edward A. Steiner, brilliant author of From Alien to 
Citizen and of many other books that have powerfully 
influenced public opinion in behalf of immigrants was 
born in Vienna, Austria. Mary Antin, author of The 
Promised Land, was born in Polotzk, Russia. To Hun- 
gary Columbia University is indebted for Michael 
Pupin, professor of electromechanics. “And what shall 
I more say? for the time would faii me to tell of” 
the multitude from alien races that have helped build 
America. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. Tell the story of the Good Samaritan. 

2. Describe Jesus’ experience with a foreigner during the only 
trip that he ever took outside of his own country. 

3. Why was Jesus justified in spending his whole life with the 
Jewish people? 

4. Name some suggestions in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters 
to show that Christ meant his religion to be universal. 

5. What principle is involved in the story of the Good Samari- 
tan yee would do away with the barriers between the 
races 


120 


m OW bh = 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


. Give an instance in which Jesus praised a Roman above any 


Jew that he had known. 


. Name three or more men of different races who have become 


equally earnest promoters of Christianity. 


. In what sense is the word ‘‘love” used when we are urged to 


love men of a different race? 


. Give examples in American life of the value of preserving 


racial differences. 


. Would Jesus condemn our present immigration laws? 


Oral Discussion 


. Show how the Greek woman secured the healing of her 


daughter by her quick wit. 


. Did Jesus succeed in training the Jews so that they could 


start Christianity ? 


. Why is it important to preserve the independence of small 


nations? 


. What is the meaning of the Parable of the Mustard Seed? 


Special Assignments 


. Read Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, and give a 


brief report to the class. 


. Study Acts 10 and state whether Peter held the same view 


as Paul concerning the application of the Gospel to differ- 
ent races. 


. Write an essay on a Christian’s attitude to the race problem, 


referring to Oldham’s Christianity and the Race Problem. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THINGS THAT MAKE FOR HAPPINESS 
Matthew 7; Luke 6: 37-49; Luke 7 : 36-50. 


1. The Refuge and Strength of the Ages. 


As one reads the Sermon on the Mount, from that 
description of the perfect man in the Beatitudes to the 
picture of the House on the Rock, there rises up before 
the mind the figure of earth’s greatest character, who 
built into his own life the things which he taught. 
When he said, “Come unto me... and I will give 
you rest,” people began to go to him at once, and down 
through the ages that procession of burdened souls has 
wended its way toward him, and not one has gone in 
vain. Mrs. Humphry Ward once asked Walter Pater, 
at a reception in his little white cottage at Oxford, “Do 
you not think that the church exalts Christ too much?” 
He replied, “‘How can you deny the greatness and worth 
of one who could say ‘Come unto me... and I will 
give you rest,’ and then keep his promise to all the 
millions who have gone to him.” 

The Buddha did not say, “Come unto me,” but he 
declared in the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteous- 
ness, Buddhism’s Sermon on the Mount, that peace 
would follow in the footsteps of the one who recognized 
the existence of suffering, its causes, its remedy, and 
its cessation, and entered upon the eightfold path of 
morality. But there was no personal help in that, no 
Saviour, no Father in heaven. 

121 


1Z2 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Three hundred years before Christ, Krishna, one of 
the gods of Hinduism, said, as reported in the Gita, 
Hinduism’s New Testament, ‘‘Forsaking all duties, 
come to me as your sole refuge. I will release you from 
all sins. Be not grieved.” But this was said only to 
one who was ready to abandon action and become a 
monk. That religion, beautiful at its best, proved to 
be unsocial and ineffective in human society. In all 
nations men have reached up weary hands toward 
heaven, and here and there, apart from Christianity, 
individuals have found help and developed lofty char- 
acters, but Christ’s way alone has proved practical for 
the millions of mankind, and it alone has produced a 
civilization in which individuals find a helpful environ- 
ment for the highest spiritual attainment. 


2. Concerning Harsh Judgments. 


That perfect character which is outlined for us in the 
Beatitudes becomes loving and persuasive in the seventh 
chapter of Matthew. He would not judge others as 
the Pharisees were doing, because others have troubles 
and temptations of which even their friends cannot 
know. Moreover, when one judges another he shows 
his own lack of breadth. Jesus was a new kind of person 
in the world, broad in sympathy as well as good in char- 
acter, lofty in attainment, yet without a bit of pride. 

One day a critical young man was walking past a 
house newly built according to the colonial style of 
architecture. He was ignorant of architecture but that 
did not prevent his sense of superiority from finding 
expression, and he said to a companion “ What a plain 
house to spend so much money on; the owner has no 
taste.’’ He showed his own crude preference for a vul- 
gar style of beauty. So it is in all our judging. It re- 


THINGS THAT MAKE FOR HAPPINESS 123 


veals what we are. Judge not, that you may not be 
judged yourselves. The censorious teacher, the fault- 
finding woman, the harsh husband stand condemned 
in the light of this saying. 


3. At the House of Simon. 


The story of the banquet in the house of Simon (Luke 
7: 36-50) is a good example of Jesus’ condemnation of 
pride. A wealthy Pharisee had invited Jesus to dinner. 
His pride and high esteem of himself had kept him from 
treating Jesus with the ordinary courtesy due a guest. 
He had not had water poured on his feet, nor given him 
the kiss of greeting, nor furnished any oil for his head. 
Unexpectedly a woman of the street stepped into the 
banquet-room. She stood at the feet of Jesus and wept 
tears of repentance while she wiped his feet with the 
hair of her head. 

Simon said to himself, ‘“‘If Jesus is what he claims to 
be, he will recognize what kind of a woman this is and 
refuse to have anything to do with her.’’ But Jesus 
saw that Simon’s pride was much worse than the wo- 
man’s sin, and he told him the story of two men. One 
owed his creditor fifty pounds and the other five but 
neither was able to pay. He freely forgave them both. 
“Which of the two men,” said Jesus, “will love the 
creditor most? The one who had most forgiven.” Jesus 
then told Simon that this woman was better than he. 

There is a painting by Rubens called Christ in the 
House of Simon which shows this scene most impressive- 
ly. Simon surrounded by his wealthy Jewish friends 
draws back in horror when he sees the woman fall at 
Jesus’ feet. The proud Pharisee looks at Jesus in scorn 
while Jesus looks Simon in the eye and reproves him for 
his pride and hardness of heart. 


124 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


4. The Golden Rule in Three Religions. 


Jesus’ rule of life in Matthew 7:12, “Whatever ye 
would like men to do to you, do just the same to them,” 
is another of those revolutionary sayings that have made 
Christianity so attractive in the world. It simply means 
that one should treat others as he thinks he himself 
ought to be treated if he were in the other man’s place. 
It is an appeal for fair treatment for all, and would tend 
to do away with the feeling in society that one was try- 
ing to get an advantage over another. 

In China two teachers appeared about six hundred 
years before Christ who gave rules of conduct very like 
this. Lao-tze said, ‘‘Recompense injury with kindness. 
To those who are good to me I am good and to those 
who are not good to me, I am also good. And thus all 
get to be good.” 

Confucius’ golden rule was not as lofty as this in 
thought. It ran as follows, “Recompense injury with 
justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.”’ This 
has often been called the “silver rule” of Confucius. 
It is inferior to both the others because of its negative 
character. While Lao-tze, the founder of Taoism, gave 
a rule very like that of Jesus yet he lacked the belief in 
a personal God. It was this belief that gave added 
significance to the statement of Jesus (Matthew 5: 38- 
48), 


5. The Two Ways. 


Another teaching of Jesus that has led many people 
to write poems and paint pictures is that the way to 
success is narrow, hard to find, and hard to travel 
(Matthew 7:13, 14). The very fact that the teaching 
seems so difficult has led people to illustrate it and make 


THINGS THAT MAKE FOR HAPPINESS 125 


it. clear to life’s beginners. Why should it be so hard to 
get the best things? Why do white lilies grow out of the 
black mud? Why did Alice Freeman Palmer have to 
suffer deprivations and hardship in order to secure an 
education? Abraham Mitrie Rihbany writes of his 
early experiences: ‘‘I was taken out of school at the 
age of nine and introduced to manual labor... . My 
wage was two pennies a day, and the hours of labor 
from dawn until dusk. . . . When I think of the fore- 
man who ruled over us in those days, the month I 
spent under him as a cocoon-picker rises in my mind as 
a harrowing memory.” It has been so with many of 
the good and great of earth. They have found it hard 
to follow the path that leads to heaven. 
“But always fronting onward toward the light, 
Always and always facing toward the right, 
Robbed, starved, defeated, fallen, wide astray— 


On with what strength I have, 
Back to the way!” 


The narrow path has proved best. It is the path of 
service. Moses trod it and so did Jesus. What a long 
line of noble men and women have climbed that steep 
path! Paul, Jerome, Augustine, Saint Martin, Saint 
Clotilde, Bertha, Luther, Saint Francis, Saint Bernard, 
Pasteur, Father Damien, Edith Cavell, and all the rest. 
The hard way must be best. 


* Machinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent.” 


6. Heart’s Treasures. 


We may combine two sayings of the Master and 
thereby gain a new insight: ‘By their fruits ye shall 
know them” and ‘Lay up for yourselves treasures in 
heaven.” The latter may better be translated “‘heav- 


126 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


enly treasures.””’ What we store up in our minds will 


surely come out in our thoughts and speech. ‘What 
we are thinking we shall soon be doing.”’ 
“As our dreams are so are we; 
We shape in thought, what soon we shape in deed; 


And what we daily hold within, we grow to be; 
Our visions are ourselves.” 


That was good advice once given by some one, and 
it has been repeated a thousand times: ‘‘Every day read 
a good poem, look at a beautiful picture, and listen to © 
inspiring music.’’ Verses learned in youth come back 
to bless us in later years. These heavenly treasures 
may not pay good dividends on Wall Street, but their 
worth in producing character is beyond value. Jesus 
said, the word is the overflow of the heart. “Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 
12:34 and Luke 6:45). What a heart, then, his words 
reveal! . . . His words caught the attention and lived 
in the memory; they revealed such a nature; they were 
so living and unforgetable! | 

This wonderful Sermon on the Mount closes with 
two pictures, one of the House on the Rock and the 
other of the House on the Sand (7: 24-27). It shows 
that Jesus was seeking by all his teachings to build 
permanent lives, lives that would stand the worst 
storms. When all the teachings of the Master are 
gathered together, and his great spiritual discoveries 
are compared with those of the world’s great men, he 
stands out supreme for seven reasons that have been 
enumerated by President King in his Ethics of Jesus 
(pp. 198-200): He gave unity to our life by his idea of 
love as fulfilling all law; deeper meaning to the teachings 
which he has in common with other religions by making 
the moral law become the will of the Father in heaven; 


THINGS THAT MAKE FOR HAPPINESS f2G 


created a new realm of morality by his list of virtues 
that do not involve fighting against any interests of 
mankind; a new spirit to morality by making it the 
joyful obedience of a child to the Father; set religion 
free from beliefs that would be outgrown; gave himself 
as the embodiment of all that he taught; and had the 
power peculiar to himself of making effective his teaching 
in the lives of men. 


~~ Whe 


COON On 


mo nb 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. How could Jesus say, ‘‘Come unto me and I will give you rest’? 
. Compare the Buddha with Jesus in this respect. 
. What social test does Christianity stand better than Hindu- 


ism ? 


. Think of some person of your acquaintance who is accustomed 


to judge others harshly and name two evident failings in- 
volved. 


. Tell the story of the banquet in the house of Simon. 


What harm does pride like that of Simon do in the world? 


. Give the Golden Rule in three religions. 
. What did Jesus mean by the narrow way that leads to success? 
. Explain what Jesus meant by “Out of the abundance of the 


heart the mouth speaketh.” 


Oral Discussion 


. What is the message of the story of the House on the Rock 


and the House on the Sand? 


. In what respect was Jesus’ golden rule superior to that of 


Confucius? 


. What does the Taoist’s golden rule lack? 
. How may the emotional appeal of a religious service or music 


or drama contribute to character-building ? 


Special Assignments 


. Write a description of Rubens’s painting, Christ in the House 


Simon. 


0 
. Read The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer, by G. H. Palmer, and 


give examples of the way in which early hardship helped 
her to appreciate the needs of others. 


. Read The Friendly Road, by David Grayson. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE SUPREME TEACHER AND HIS PARABLES 
Matthew 13; Luke 15; Colossians 3 : 3-23. 


I. No Portrait of the Master. 


We have viewed the figure of the Master from many 
sides: as eloquent preacher to the masses in Galilee, 
as brilliant antagonist, challenging the religious leaders 
of the Jews, as the organizer and instructor of the 
Twelve, as the creator of a new system of morals and 
religion, destined to revolutionize the world. Yet we 
have made little progress toward really comprehending 
his greatness or explaining his achievements. Would a 
portrait help us? “The Gospels contain no portrait of 
Jesus. They tell us nothing of his face or form. All 
reputed descriptions or likenesses are apocryphal and 
spurious. The master painters and sculptors, medixval 
and modern, have lavished their genius in the effort 
to put on canvas or carve in marble their conceptions 
of the Christ, and these have varied with the time 
and place and race of the artists. They have pictured 
many types, from the pale and haggard ascetic and the 
saintly spiritual to the blond and robust mingler with 
men; from the worn but majestic Christ before Pilate 
to the strong and gracious Master looking on the rich 
young ruler” (Grose, Never Man So Spake). 

Study Hofmann’s Head of Christ, a detail of Christ 
and the Rich Young Man, and Raphael’s Head of Christ, 
a detail of The Transfiguration, and note how far short 
they both fall of attaining perfection. Hofmann makes 

128 


THE SUPREME TEACHER AND HIS PARABLES 129 


the face moral and spiritual and Raphael depicts faith, 
repose, and a vision of things heavenly. Raphael sug- 
gests possibly the wage-earner and strong helper on 
whom a widowed mother may lean. But where are the 
many other sides of his nature and activity? Where is 
the ‘friend, teacher, son, brother, physician, wedding- 
guest, mourner, father confessor, preacher, denouncer, 
temple-cleanser, pilgrim, fugitive, wonder-worker, 
prophet, lawgiver, social lion, friend of the demi-monde, 
story-teller, reformer, visionary, mystic, Jewish Mes- 
siah, martyr, Son of Man, Son of God! . . . These are 
all facets of the flawless jewel; we must turn the crystal 
slowly and meditatively, holding it up to the light of 
our spiritual experience, in order that each plane may 
flash its message to us. The whole we can never grasp 
in one act of sight; it comes to us as a synthesis of in- 
sights, and we realize it as an unvisualized emotion. 
So with all things that have an infinite element; they 
must be apprehended by the imagination as symbol 
and experienced by the heart as feeling.” 

“The great idea baffles wit, 

Language falters under it, 
It leaves the learnéd in the lurch. 
Nor art nor power nor toil can find 
The measure of the eternal Mind, 


Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church.” 
—Bailey, Gospel in Art, 435, 436. 


2. The Teacher of Mankind. 


We might think of listing Jesus among the teachers 
of the world, for everywhere in the Gospel of Mark he 
is pictured as teaching. By the sea, in the house, on 
the street, in the fields, always he is teaching. They 
call him rabbi. He answers their questions, he gives 
them many lessons. Above everything else he is a 
teacher. 


130 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Yet it does not seem appropriate to list him with 
Socrates, Arnold of Rugby, and Mark Hopkins, even 
though they were great teachers. An experiment has 
been suggested as follows: in a room full of people ask 
the question, ‘What would you do if suddenly Mark 
Hopkins should appear from the other world and be 
introduced as President Hopkins, the great teacher?’’ 
Would they not rise up and do him honor? ‘ What 
would you do if Jesus Christ should walk into the 
centre of the room?” They would certainly all fall 
on their faces. 

Think of Jesus as the great teacher in two respects: 
as master of thought, and as master of literary expres- 
sion. His attempt to put God at the centre of all our 
thinking was the greatest effort that the human mind 
has made; and he was successful. The idea of God is the 
most wonderful that has ever dawned on the mind of 
man. God at the centre of the universe, reaching out to 
every heavenly body; God at the centre of human his- 
tory, dominating every nation, yet ruling them by 
some inner, persuasive power and not by force; God at 
the centre of every human life, ready to help, quick to 
reprove, never at a loss to know how to save, yet 
strangely limited by the evil will of man—it was such a 
God that he presented to his generation. 

On all sides there were petty gods, appealing for the 
allegiance of their worshippers. There were gold gods, 
wooden gods, gods in costly temples, supported :by 
elaborate systems of worship. All these were useless to 
men, indeed they had become a bar to progress. Jesus’ 
task was ‘to induce men to rethink God.” It was hard 
to clear away the clutter of the ages. It seemed i im- 
possible to men that there should be a religion without 
priests, smoking altars, temples, many laws, and many 


THE SUPREME TEACHER AND HIS PARABLES 131 


ceremonies. Jesus wanted men to go directly to God 
in prayer, and to think of him as a partner with them 
in making the world better. 

Moreover, Jesus did not propose to limit the knowl- 
edge of God to a select few, but actually planned for 
the great mass of mankind to know him and to change 
their lives by direct and personal contact with him. 
He changed the face of human history by this master- 
thought. To-day the gods that are no-gods are disap- 
pearing, and with them their kings and priests; in place 
of them is the Father of Jesus Christ, the spiritual God, 
and with him millions of followers who pray directly to 
him and undertake to obey him. 

How did Jesus express these ideas? By means of 
the parable, that literary form which he brought to 
perfection. Doctor George A. Gordon has truly said, 
“In the living wisdom of the world . . . there is noth- 
ing to match the parabolic wisdom of Jesus.” The 
stories of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the 
Lost Sheep, the Sower, the Pearl of Great Price were 
not even put into written form by the Master, yet they 
are supreme in thought and expression. They are the 
best-known stories in the world, while at the same time 
they contain the most profound thought. 

Study, for example, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, 
and note in it especially the portrayal of character. 
There is the father, strong, capable, having all that the 
world desires in the way of home and business, yet 
supremely loving. This represents God, and has made 
clear and convincing the meaning of God to endless 
millions of the human race to whom theology has made 
no appeal. In contrast with the father is the wayward 
boy with his false notion of the chief good in life. He 
goes his way, leaving behind home and love, and spend- 


132 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


ing his money on persons who cannot love and on things 
that do not count. As in a mirror mankind sees itself 
in that picture. The hard experiences of life send the 
boy home, for deep in his mind is the love of the father 
whom he cannot forget. Then the older brother appears 
to remind us all of the meanness that sneaks in unin- 
vited at the very moments when we should be at our 
best. ‘There is no philosophy of human history like 
that contained in the Parable of the Lost Son. The 
vision of good, real and apparent, the sources of tragic 
mistake in confounding appearance and reality, the 
discipline of suffering, the awakening power of disil- 
lusionment, the illumination of experience, and the 
benignity of the Eternal Reality sovereign in all the 
courses of thought and life, are here depicted by a genius 
to whom man’s intellect and heart are utterly trans- 
parent. There is hardly a phrase in this profound and 
wonderful parable that does not compress within itself 
a world of meaning for mankind” (G. A. Gordon). 
Study the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15: 4-7) 
with that picture of the joy of heaven over one lost 
sheep. There in the sheepfold as the great storm threat- 
ens is the good shepherd counting his flock. To his 
sorrow he finds one missing. “There were ninety and 
nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold.” The lost 
one must be found. So the good shepherd representing 
the heavenly Father goes out into the storm and climbs 
over dangerous places, and rescues the lost one. Alfred 
Soord has painted the scene in his Lost Sheep. There is 
the sheep clinging to the edge of the precipice. One 
more step and she will fall into the gulf below. Close 
above the eagles are making ready to seize upon the 
prey. The storm is beginning and it will soon be dark. 
But the shepherd presses on until the sheep is saved. 





THE SUPREME TEACHER AND HIS PARABLES 133 


The power of this story told by Jesus concerning the 
Father’s love and human need is evidenced by the fact 
that scores of artists have tried to paint the scene and 
many poets have put it into song. Why so many paint- 
ings on the parables—many scores of them? Why over 
eighty paintings of the Nativity in the galleries of 
Europe? Why all the books of description, why all 
the poems about Jesus? Why all the great pieces of 
music inspired by him? Because whether as teacher or 
Lord he was earth’s great artist. 


3. His Freedom from Narrowness. 


The Master’s mission was carried out in one little 
country, and among a people notorious for exclusive- 
ness. He was by race a Jew. How did it come about 
that his teaching is universal? His achievement in 
creating the Lord’s Prayer should win for him eternal 
fame for universality; there is no nation on earth, of 
whatever race or religion to which it does not apply. 

Hillis attributes Jesus’ universal appeal to the sim- 
plicity of his message, its freedom from the complexity 
and cumbersomeness of the philosophers. ‘He rises 
like a white shaft, simple, yet sublime. In every realm 
simplicity is the proof of greatness. ... All the im- 
mortals, Moses, Paul, and Socrates, are men plain to 
the verge of harshness. All who are ‘to the manner 
born’ carry with them a certain air of quiet repose, and 
their simplicity is the finest ornament of their great- 
ness. Nature achieves all her strength and beauty by 
the avoidance of complexity.” 

Those who seek to understand the reasons for the 
wide appeal of Jesus will profit by comparing the 
parables of Jesus with Tennyson’s great parable of life, 
The Holy Grail. Tennyson has beauty of style and real 


134 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


depth of thought, but the Holy Grail is not for the mass 
of people to enjoy. It is complex and full of little re- 
finements of style. Here and there are passages of clear 
beauty and power, as, for example: 


“For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamped with the image of the King.” 


But in many passages there are unusual words and 
literary allusions which the trained reader alone can 
enjoy. An example of this is the description of the 
strange chair in which no one could sit without losing 
himself. 

Another example of the universality of Jesus’ mind 
was his ability to coin words and phrases for the whole 
race. H. H. Horne, in his Jesus—Our Standard, has 
given a long list of such words, “coined in a poet’s soul, 
[who] has caught and portrayed those bits of life, 
charged them with emotion, surcharged them with 
spiritual meaning, and committed them to the keeping 
of man’s heart forever.”” Among them are the follow- 
ing: The night wind blowing where it listeth, The 
branch abiding in the vine, The light of the world, The 
outer darkness, The cup of cold water, The sheep and 
the goats, The blind leading the blind, The cock crow- 
ing, The many mansions, The righteous shining forth 
as the sun, The great gulf fixed, The whited sepulchres, 
The gates of hell, The ninety and nine. 


4. The Originality of His Teaching. 

It is possible to find parallels to many teachings of 
Jesus. In China there was the Golden Rule; in Israel, 
the Kingdom of God; in the Proverbs one may find 
the elements of the Parable of the House on the Rock 


THE SUPREME TEACHER AND HIS PARABLES 135 


and on the Sand; in the teachings of John the Baptist 
there was the same emphasis on having the heart right 
with God that Jesus gave; and there were many faint 
foreshadowings of his thought in many nations. But 
he put something new into the things he taught by 
living them, spiritualizing them, and lifting them to the 
universal plane. 

We may try to understand Jesus’ originality by com- 
paring him and his words with other men and their 
teachings. Abraham Lincoln and Socrates were differ- 
ent from any other men in the American or Greek 
peoples. John Hay, Lincoln’s private secretary, said 
that next to Christ Lincoln was the best man that ever 
lived. In him surely “was something new, something 
excellent.” Socrates contributed much to the Greeks 
and through them to the world. But what did either 
of these men teach which compares with the Sermon 
on the Mount, the Good Samaritan, the Lord’s 
Prayer? May we not all agree with Doctor George A. 
Gordon: “Jesus was a modern man, the first, the 
original, the creative modern man. In him the spirit 
of man broke from the solemn melancholy of Egypt, 
the high exclusiveness of Israel, and the sovereign 
aristocracy of Greece, into the vision of the intrinsic 
dignity and measureless worth of man as man. The 
world has been sadly unfaithful to that vision, yet the 
vision itself has never altogether faded from our dis- 
tracted life; to-day it abides in strength, and the person 
who was its original representative is still its authentic 
and incomparable type.” 

‘“‘O Christ of contrasts, infinite paradox, 
Yet life’s explainer, solvent harmony, 
Frail strength, pure passion, meek austerity, 


And the white splendor of these darken’d years,— 
I lean my wondering, wayward heart on Thine.” 


136 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Pr WH 


RPO bt 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Why has no artist done justice to the figure and face of Jesus? 
. What has led men to put his work of teaching first in the de- 


scription of his activities? 
What was his teaching concerning God? 


. How did Jesus differ from other teachers with respect to the 


masses of mankind? 


. What literary form did he bring to perfection in his teachings? 


Give examples. 


. Give G. A. Gordon’s estimate of the Parable of the Prodigal 


Son. 


. What great hope did Jesus express in the Parable of the Mus- 


tard Seed? 


. Name some phrases which Jesus coined. 
. How did Jesus make the things he taught seem new? 


Oral Discussion 


What are some of the qualities of the Master that Hofmann 
does not show in his portrait of his face? 


‘ What was it in Jesus that would make men bow down before 


him? 


. What kind of gods were many worshipping when Jesus came? 
- What does Soord’s picture, the Lost Sheep, borrow from the 


New Testament? 


Special Assignments 


. Read Bushnell’s Character of Jesus and make an outline of the 


book. 


. What moral peril was involved in making images of the gods? 
. Write an essay on the truths about the kingdom which are 


taught in the seven parables in Matthew 13. 


. Report the scene in Lorna Doone, by Blackmore, in which 


John Ridd rescues two sheep from the blizzard. 


Part 5 
FAREWELL TO GALILEE 


CHAPTER XVI 


A DECISION THAT MEANT DEATH 


Mark 8 : 27-9: 138; Matthew 16 : 138-17 : 23; Luke 9: 18-36; 
2 Corinthians 5: 14-21. 


1. A Scene at the Foot of Mount Hermon. 

The place is beautiful but the occasion is tragic. 
On a grassy slope from which one of the three brooks 
which form the Jordan rushes forth from the base of 
Mount Hermon twelve men are reclining with Jesus in 
their midst. They are far from the crowds that usually 
press upon them, for they are twenty-five miles north 
of Capernaum. As we draw near enough to look on 
their faces, we see that these faithful followers of the 
Master have been summoned to a serious conference. 
At last we hear Jesus say, ‘““Who do people say the 
Son of Man is?” It seems strange that he should ask 
his followers to tell him what the people are saying. 
Evidently he is discouraged or has suffered some re- 
verses. And that is the fact. When he chose the Twelve 
his cause was very popular, but his popularity is wan- 
ing now; many even of his followers have abandoned 
him. The Pharisees who have been opposing him for 
months have recently intensified their opposition to him. 

137 


138 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


It is clear that he cannot promote his kingdom peace- 
ably in Galilee. It is concerning these things that he is 
now having a discussion with his disciples at Cesarea 
Philippi. 

The disciples tell him that people regard him as one 
of the prophets. Then he asks them a personal ques- 
tion that calls for a decision: ‘Who do you say I am?” 
Peter is the spokesman as usual; while the others in 
their uncertainty keep silent, he cries out: “‘Thou art 
the Christ.” Jesus said to Peter: ‘Blessed art thou 
... and I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter 
(rock), and upon this rock I will build my church; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” 

Evidently the other disciples did not know what to 
say. Jesus had consistently refused to claim the mes- 
siahship, and did not seem to like to talk about it. 
Now unexpectedly he admits that he is the Messiah 
and praises Peter for perceiving the truth. There has 
been a difference of opinion concerning the meaning of 
what he said to Peter. He probably meant that Peter 
was the foundation of the church somewhat as George 
Washington was the foundation of the United States; 
he was to be first of the great leaders in the new move- 
ment. Then he charged the perplexed disciples to tell 
no man that he was the Messiah. 


2. Events that Led to This Crisis. 


The Gospel of Mark, on which we are basing’ the 
historical framework of our life of Jesus, gives the 
reader the impression that events succeeded one an- 
other rapidly. After Jesus had won popularity by his 
teaching and his healing in different parts of Galilee, 
the Twelve were sent out on their mission (Mark 
6: 7-13). While they were absent Jesus worked steadily 


A DECISION THAT MEANT DEATH 139 


among the people and they heard him gladly, for we 
read that five thousand of them hurried to him when he 
made an appointment with the Twelve on their return 
to retire to a secluded spot and make their report. The 
story gives the impression that Jesus was greatly moved 
by the multitude wandering about without guidance 
or hope (6:34). The narrative also suggests that some- 
thing unusual had happened, for he hastily constrained 
the Twelve to leave by boat while he sent the crowd 
away and departed alone to the mountain to pray. 
What actually happened is mentioned in John 6: 15, 
which reports that the people were so enthusiastic that 
they “were about to come and take him by force, to 
make him king.’”’ The situation was made more serious 
by the fact that the Passover was at hand and throngs 
of pilgrims might be quickly assembled and start a 
revolution. Jesus might do what other leaders had 
done. He could announce that he was the Messiah and 
raise a large force and try to overthrow the Roman gov- 
ernment in Palestine. 

He was therefore greatly troubled because his con- 
ception of religion was so different from that of the 
people. On the one hand the masses were demanding 
that he declare himself the Messiah, and change the 
unhappy conditions of life; on the other were the Phari- 
sees and Sadducees (8: 1-21), backed by the local gov- 
ernment, plotting against him, while his followers were 
abandoning him. He had not planned to confess him- 
self as Messiah at this time even to his disciples, be- 
cause there was danger that his dearest religious hope 
would be destroyed by political and social ambition. He 
was compelled, however, in view of the crisis brought 
about by the conflicting forces to tell the Twelve that 
he was in a sense the Messiah. 


140 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


3. Jesus Foretells His Death. 


Before the Twelve could recover from their astonish- 
ment over his admission and over his strange words to 
Peter he added a statement that left them mystified 
and afraid (9:32). He said that he must die in order 
to carry out his plan. Peter with perhaps a new sense of 
his importance as a result of the high position that 
Jesus had predicted for him in the new Kingdom re- 
buked him and said it was impossible that the Messiah 
should die. 

We know that this idea that the Messiah should die 
a violent death was an entirely new thing in Jewish 
history. Peter saw that all would be lost if Jesus’ fol- 
lowers got that idea. But Jesus insisted that his death 
was inevitable and that Peter was not thinking as God 
thought. Even then the disciples failed to understand 
and probably thought that this was only another 
“parable” perhaps, teaching that Jesus as the Son of 
Man from heaven would retire for a time and then 
suddenly appear and take control of his kingdom. But 
a little later Jesus repeated his assertion that he was 
to be put to death. 

A study of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 shows that many 
passages imply the idea of one who would suffer in 
order to become redeemer. Jesus knew the Old Testa- 
ment thoroughly and he must have appreciated the 
references in so beautiful a passage as that of Isaiah. 
If, as Luke suggests, he grew in wisdom may it not be 
that in this crisis he was inspired by the picture of the 
suffering servant in the Old Testament to decide upon 
a new course of action for himself? Instead of con- 
tinuing the attempt to establish his kingdom in Galilee, 
which later would spread through all the earth, he 





A DECISION THAT MEANT DEATH 141 


would follow the way of the cross, and thus by a wholly 
spiritual process draw all men unto him. That he had 
come definitely to this conclusion seems evident, for 
immediately after his rebuke of Peter he called the 
multitude to join the group of his disciples and listen 
to this statement: “If any man would come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; 
and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
gospel’s shall save it.”’ 


4. The Transfiguration. 

While we cannot follow the Gospel of John as a 
chronological statement of the events in Jesus’ life we 
may find in it valuable explanations of those events. 
In 6: 66, 67 it is stated that many of Jesus’ disciples 
went back, and walked with him no more. ‘‘ Would ye 
also go away?” Jesus said to the Twelve. Peter said: 
“We cannot go away, for you alone have the words of 
eternal life.’”’ This evidently fixes the scene of the 
Transfiguration as following Jesus’ announcement of 
his death. The Twelve were disappointed and almost 
ready to give up their work for the Kingdom. In order 
to meet this situation Jesus took Peter, James, and 
John upon a spur of Mount Hermon for a night of 
prayer and consultation. While he prayed the three 
men fell asleep. The report of the Transfiguration in 
Luke suggests that the disciples were awakened sud- 
denly and had a vision. 

This night experience strengthened the faith of Peter, 
James, and John, and must have been a comfort to 
Jesus. Heaven seemed to come near them and the 
vision of Elijah and Moses would assure the disciples 
that Jesus was what he claimed to be. After the Trans- 


142 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


figuration the Twelve went straightforward to Jerusa- 
lem with their Master, and showed no hesitation or 
doubt. 

Just what happened on the mountain is not clear to 
us. We may gain help from Saint Francis. It is re- 
ported in the Legend of the Three Companions that 
Saint Francis had retired with three companions to 
Monte Alverna in the upper Arno to meditate on the 
sufferings of the Saviour. While praying there, he had a 
vision of Christ so intense that he was reported to have 
borne the nail-prints on his hands. It is profitable to 
read the Life of Saint Francis by Paul Sabatier, not 
only because of this experience, but also for many fine 
suggestions that come out of the inner life of this ear- 
nest Christian. Books of biography are often the best 
interpreters of the Bible. 


5. Raphael’s “‘ Transfiguration.” 

The painting of The Transfiguration in the Vatican 
Gallery in Rome is the interpretation by a great artist of 
this experience that came to Jesus at a critical moment. 
In the upper part of the picture Jesus is represented as 
on the clouds between Elijah and Moses. Below them 
Peter has fallen on his face, John is protecting his eyes 
from the bright light by holding up his hand, while 
James is kneeling in awe. 

In the lower half of the picture the story of Mark 
9: 14-29 is portrayed. At the centre is the sick boy 
who formed the problem for the disciples. All the lines 
of the painting point toward the figure of Christ, who 
is the solution of the problem. Bailey, in his The Gospel 
in Art, declares that this picture is Raphael’s master- 
piece, a supreme composition and a supreme work of 
character interpretation. It expresses the deepest 





A DECISION THAT MEANT DEATH 143 


truth of life, that man needs redemption and that in 
Christ that need is met. 


Ne 


H> Co bo 


CoN On Fk w 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Tell the story of Jesus’ great decision at Cesarea Philippi. 
. How may the circumstances connected with the feeding of the 


five thousand have influenced Jesus’ decision to announce 
his messiahship? See John 6: 15. 


. Why had he before this refused to talk about it, or let others 


call him Messiah ? 
What did Jesus mean by calling Peter the rock upon which he 
would build his church? 


. What did Jesus declare was necessary in order to carry out his 


plan as Messiah? 


. How had the Old Testament prepared the way for this new 


idea of a suffering Messiah? 


. Describe the Transfiguration. How does Raphael’s painting 


interpret it? 


. How did that strengthen the disciples and comfort Jesus? 
. Give an experience that Saint Francis had on Monte Alverna 


which seems like that of Jesus. 


Oral Discussion 


. Why did the answers that the disciples, except Peter, gave 


Jesus at Czesarea Philippi disappoint him? 


. What attitude of the Pharisees may have led Jesus to decide 


upon this conference? 


. What did Jesus say might be the consequence to any man who 


should follow him? 
Why did Jesus encourage people to follow him if it meant self- 
sacrifice ? 


. What is the meaning of Mark 8:36? 


Special Assignments 


. Does Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand imply that he would 


oppose the forming of organizations to care for the poor 
and to investigate the causes of poverty? 


. Write a description of Raphael’s life. 
. Read the life of Saint Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier. 
. Arrange a harmony of the three Gospels in parallel columns 


on the Transfiguration. 


CHAPTER XVII 


“HE SET HIS FACE TO GO TO JERUSALEM” 
Mark 10: 1-45; 14: 3-9. With references to Luke 9: 51 to 19: 28. 


I. The Lull before the Storm. 


The rainy season was over, flowers covered the 
valleys, and the song of birds filled the air when Jesus 
turned his face toward Jerusalem. New courage filled 
the disciples, following the Transfiguration. Jesus and 
his disciples began the long journey to Jerusalem, 
travelling slowly and teaching and healing on the way. 
There was little opposition from the Pharisees and the 
fierce hostility of the priests at Jerusalem had not yet 
been aroused. It was the lull before the storm, the 
Indian summer preceding the frosts of winter. To this 
period Mark gives only one chapter of his Gospel, while 
Luke fills ten chapters with wonderful parables and 
interesting episodes in the life of the Master. The 
journey began at Mount Hermon, there was a secret 
visit in Capernaum, and then one fiery episode on the 
first day when the group undertook to pass through 
Samaria. 


2. Calling down Fire. 


Luke reports a scene which Mark omits (Luke 9: 51- 
56) concerning the refusal of the inhabitants of a village 
of Samaria to entertain Jesus. An old feud is re- 
called, for the narrative says they were hostile because 

144 


“HE SET HIS FACE TO GO TO JERUSALEM” 145 


he was on his way to Jerusalem. The Samaritans were 
probably only returning the hatred which the Jews often 
showed toward them, because the Jews would have no 
dealings with the Samaritans. James and John, well 
termed “‘‘Sons of Thunder,” became excited and asked 
Jesus to order lightning from heaven to burn them. 
Jesus rebuked his devoted followers and turned back 
from Samaria probably across the valley of Esdraelon 
through the ancient city of Bethshan. Itis a pity that 
we have no records of Bethshan at this time for it has 
proved to be one of the most ancient and important 
places ever uncovered by the excavators’ shovels. Cross- 
ing the Jordan not far away they would camp for the 
night in the valley on the east side. At that season of 
the year it was more beautiful than later in the summer 
when the rushing waters of the river, the green grass of 
the valleys, and the snow cap on Mount Hermon had 
given way before the summer heat. 


3. The Defender of Women and Children. 


On the way down the valley Jesus, who had now be- 
come famous, met many people who asked him ques- 
tions. One day a Pharisee asked him if it was lawful to 
divorce a wife (Mark 10: 2-12). Jesus replied, ‘‘ What 
God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” 
He knew the bitterness and hardship that come from di- 
vorce. When a little writing on a sheet of paper is all 
that stands between a woman and the street it was a 
very common thing to find a woman turned out of her 
home and earning a precarious living, often by the 
vilest means. To-day in the Orient, wherever the Mo- 
hammedan faith prevails this evil custom continues. 
Woman has few rights and the selfishness of man is 
unrestrained. Our most powerful influence in opposi- 


146 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


tion to easy divorce is the spirit of Jesus manifested in 
Christian institutions. 

Little children with all sorts of diseases were brought 
to Jesus, and sometimes serious discussions of theology 
would be interrupted by parents anxious that Jesus 
should touch some child. The disciples, seeking to 
guard Jesus from annoyance would try to drive these 
parents away. This made Jesus indignant and he gave 
voice to a sentiment that has had incalculable power for 
good in the lives of helpless young children. “Suffer 
the little children to come unto me; forbid them not, 
for of such is the Kingdom of God.” 


4. Right in Heart. (Mark 10: 32-45). 


A curious expression was used in the gospel to describe 
the feelings of the disciples during this journey when 
Jesus, preoccupied and burdened with the thoughts of 
what was before him, walked so rapidly that he often 
got far ahead of them. They were “amazed” and 
“afraid” as they hurried along behind. One day James 
and John overtook him and proposed something that 
greatly aroused the others when they heard about it. 
They said to Jesus, “When you establish your kingdom, 
let us have the two highest offices.’’ 

Jesus was disappointed in two respects. First, at the 
selfishness of these two in trying to get ahead of the 
others, Second, at the wrong conception they still held 
concerning his kingdom. After all these months of 
teaching he had not been able to show them the spiritual 
nature of the Kingdom of God. So he repeated for the 
third time his solemn assertion that as Messiah he was 
about to die. 

It is often asserted that these political ambitions 
reveal the unworthiness of these men. This is not the 


DL 


“HE SET HIS FACE TO GO TO JERUSALEM” 147 


most likely explanation, for they had proved in many 
ways their sincerity in following Jesus. The fact is 
that the disciples, like men of later generations, could 
not get rid of the old patterns which dominated their 
thinking. To be a king and to have a kingdom meant 
to them something political. It was beyond them to 
make new patterns, to fashion new forms of thought 
that would better express the ideals of Jesus, which 
they really held to as earnestly as they held to their own 
lives. Their heads were wrong, but their hearts were 
right. 


5. A Blind Beggar and a Rich Tax-Collector. 


The scope of Jesus’ friendship is illustrated by his 
relations with Bartimeus and Zacchsus. When he 
approached Jericho the people heard some one crying 
out “Son of David, have mercy on me, Son of David, 
have mercy on me.” This was the first time in which 
the Messiah had been spoken of in these terms, so far 
as our record goes. The crowd tried to stop the blind 
man from calling out to Jesus. But his appeal had 
reached the ear of the Master and he healed the 
man. 

A little later in the streets of the city when a great 
throng pressed around the little group of travellers, a 
short man was seen climbing a tree. Jesus said, ‘Come 
down, for I will take dinner with you to-day.”’ Zacchzeus 
showed evidences that he was truly converted, because 
he offered to divide his property with any whom he may 
have wronged. 

The next day when Jesus was slowly walking up the 
hill half-way to Jerusalem he was reminded of a place 
in the road where robbers often attacked travellers. 
There he told the story which has since become one of 


148 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


the most famous in the world, The Good Samaritan 
(Luke 10: 25-37). See chapter XIII. 


6. Mary and Martha. (Luke 10: 38-42.) 


Modern travellers have pointed out to them the 
ruins of a house which the guides call the site of the 
home of Mary and Martha. It lies among a group of 
mud huts, and the whole village to-day consists of not 
more than forty Moslem hovels. On the basis of that, 
it is often said that we are disillusioned when we see 
Palestine, that we lose much of the pleasure that we 
used to have when we imagined the scenes in Jesus’ life. 
But that is not true to experience. Great artists pre- 
sent the matter to us in a truer light when they picture 
many of the homes of Palestine as large and beautiful. 

Siemiradski, for example, has painted Christ with 
Mary and Martha in front of the house in Bethany, 
which he represents as a wide-spreading villa of white 
stone. There is a garden with seats protected from the 
sun by trees and vines; there is a broad approach with 
inviting steps; and a general air of hospitality. Martha 
is standing on the steps with a pitcher to draw water. 
She is evidently irritated and on the point of scolding 
Mary who is talking with Jesus in the garden as uncon- 
cernedly as if there were no dinner to prepare. Then 
Martha asks Jesus to have Mary help her serve. ‘But 
the Lord answered and said unto her, ‘Martha, Martha, 
thou art anxious and troubled about many things; but 
one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the good 
part which shall not be taken away from her,’”? Martha 
is the type of action and Mary the type of meditation. 
They are found everywhere. Where there is a Saint 
John, there is also a Peter. Where a Martin Luther, 
there an Erasmus, Kipling has expressed this endless 





: 


“HE SET HIS FACE TO GO TO JERUSALEM” 149 


contrast that appears in human life in his The Sons of 
Martha: 


© ONO BOW ww 


Ne 


“The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited 

that good part, 

But the Sons of Martha favor their mother of the careful soul 
and the troubled heart; 

And because she lost her temper once, and because she was 
rude to the Lord, her guest, 

Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons—world without end, 
reprieve or rest... . 


And the Sons of Mary smiled and are blessed—they know the 
angels are on their side, 

They know in them is the grace confessed, and for them are 
the mercies multiplied. 

They sit at the Feet—they hear the Word—they know how 
truly the Promise runs. 

They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and—the Lord 
he lays it on Martha’s Sons.” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. What great difference in the amount of space given to the 
account of the last journey of Jesus is to be noted in Mark 
and Luke? 

. What discouraging experience did the disciples have at the 

very beginning of the journey? See Luke 9: 51-56. 

. What was Jesus’ teaching about divorce? Why? 

Why were the disciples amazed and afraid as they followed 

Jesus to Jerusalem? 

In what two ways was Jesus disappointed in the disciples? 

What may we say in behalf of the disciples? 

. Tell the stories of the blind beggar and Zaccheus. 

What background does Siemiradski in his Christ with Mary 

and Martha furnish us for the familiar story? 

- What two types of persons are represented by Mary and 
Martha? 


Oral Discussion 


. Was Jesus still popular during this last journey to Jerusalem? 

. Do you think that John and James really wanted Jesus to call 
down fire from heaven? 

. What is the modern tendency regarding divorce? 


150 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


4. What is the Mohammedan practice with reference to divorce? 
5. What political idea about the kingdom still remained in the 
minds of the disciples? | 


Special Assignments 


1. To what extent has the Gospel of Luke influenced the modern 
attitude toward women and children? 

2. Describe Von Uhde’s painting, Suffer the Little Children to 
Come unto Me. 


Part 6 
THE LAST DAYS 


CuapTrer XVIII 


JESUS ANNOUNCES HIMSELF AS MESSIAH 
Mark 11: 1-11; Matthew 21: 1-11; Luke 19: 29-44. 


1. The Connection of Events in Passion Week. 

Passion week occupies a very large space in the 
Gospels, yet all the events occur within the eight days. 
It is convenient for beginners in this study to memorize 
the following table: 


Sunday The Triumphal Entry. 

Monday The Cleansing of the Temple. 

Tuesday The Debate with the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees. 

Wednesday A Quiet Day in Bethany. 

Thursday The Last Supper. 


Friday The Crucifixion. 
Saturday In the Tomb. 
Sunday The Resurrection. 


2. The View from Olivet on the First Palm Sunday. 

When the procession from Bethany toward Jerusalem 

reached the south shoulder of the Mount of Olives where 

the Holy City first comes into the view of the traveller, 
151 


152 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


we may imagine that Jesus stopped for a moment. It 
was at this point, Luke says, that he wept over the 
city. 

The view was glorious. The morning sun lighted 
the gilding of the temple roof, and the white walls of 
the city rose in contrast with the dark valley of the 
Kidron. On the side of the hill as one looked down 
toward the valley, a little to the right was the Garden 
of Gethsemane. Across the valley, and rising above 
the city walls, was the palace of the high priest, and 
the Preetorium with its guard of Roman soldiers. Just 
beyond the city, not far from the western walls was the 
“Green Hill, without the city wall.” But Jesus would 
not linger on the lovely panorama, for its beauty was 
external. Hidden behind the walls was ugliness and 
crime and impending tragedy. 


3. The Fulfilling of Prophecy. 


Jesus had sent from Bethany two disciples to arrange 
for his entrance into the city in keeping with Zechariah 
9:9. “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee; he is just, 
and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, 
even upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”’ The disciples had 
brought the colt out to Bethany and Jesus was now 
riding into the city as a sign that he was the Messiah. 
As the procession moved down the side of Olivet, across 
the valley, and up the sharp ascent to the gate of 
the city, the multitudes were spreading garments and 
branches in the road in honor of Jesus. Passing through 
the gate the procession stopped at the temple, and 
Jesus went inside and “looked round about at all 
things,”’ and then returned to Bethany with the Twelve. 

Why did Jesus ride into the city in fulfilment of that 
prophecy if he did not intend to meet the expectations 


JESUS ANNOUNCES HIMSELF AS MESSIAH 153 


of the people, for assuredly their expectations were 
chiefly political? The answer is that he did fulfil the 
deeper elements of the Old Testament hope of a Mes- 
siah. At Cesarea Philippi he had announced to his 
disciples that in a sense he had adopted the messianic 
mission. There was no better way to proclaim his in- 
tentions than by the Triumphal Entry. He wanted to 
test the willingness of the nation to accept God’s plan, 
and this procession would bring the issue to a head. 
If the leaders of the people would seriously consider 
what Jesus meant, and with him inquire thoroughly 
into the meaning of Zechariah’s prophecy, then Jesus 
might convince them of the spiritual trend of their 
scriptures culminating in Isaiah 53. It would be a won- 
derful thing if he could convert the nation to the ideals 
of Isaiah. A study of Luke 19: 37-44 shows that Jesus 
felt it his duty to make this appeal to the nation, yet 
all the time had the conviction that they would reject 
him, their only hope of peace. 


4. A Drama of World History. 

Great artists see in events what smaller minds fail 
to discover. Doré, in his painting of Christ Entering 
Jerusalem, depicts the inner meaning of the messiah- 
ship. One sees Christ riding under an arch grander 
than was ever built by any nation; representatives of 
many races are bowing before him; even the angels, 
chanting perhaps “A Saviour to all peoples,” waiting 
attendance on the scene, With uplifted face and hand 
Christ seems to hold the world in his view and in his 
power. He is no longer the Jewish Messiah but the 
universal Redeemer. 

Our failure to understand the Gospel story of the 
Triumphal Entry, if we do fail, is due to our lack of 


154 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


appreciation of the deeper meanings of the limitless 
person under a limited title. Messiah was a symbol for 
king, and a Jewish king at that. The symbol was 
too small, conveyed a wrong impression, and Jesus did 
not like to use it. In fact he never used it until the 
very last, and then only with reservations. 

What was in his mind? Did he have a vision of 
establishing God’s ideals in the whole world? Was he 
filled so completely with the spirit of God that he felt 
the good-will and the power within him overleaping 
national and racial bounds? Surely he had a mighty 
zeal to make love reign everywhere. If he grew, learning 
“obedience through the things which he suffered,” did 
he gradually come to understand that he was God’s 
chosen leader for all mankind? The Gospels represent 
him as revealing God. Not as a man who was made a 
God but as the supreme revelation of God. He was 
different from all men. He was more sure of God. He 
knew no sin. He knew that he had the power to save 
the world and so it was only natural for him to say, 
“Come unto me and [ will give you rest.” 


5. Consequences of the Rejection of Jesus. 

When the Jews rejected Jesus they involved them- 
selves and future generations in great trouble. Within 
a few years Jesus’ prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem had 
been fulfilled by the terrible destruction of the city by 
the Romans. As time went on the Jews were scattered 
in almost every nation on earth. Nowhere did they 
find permanent freedom of opportunity or escape from 
persecution. Their ill-treatment by the nations has 
formed one of the shameful pages’ of human history. 

A Jewish writer suggests that this has been one of 
the results of the rejection of the prophet of Nazareth. 


JESUS ANNOUNCES HIMSELF AS MESSIAH 155 


The Jews have had to suffer as Jesus once terribly 
suffered. 


“Are we not sharers of thy passion? Yea, 
In spirit-anguish closely by thy side 
We have drained the bitter cup, and, tortured, felt 
With thee the bruising of each heavy welt. 
Every land is our Gethsemane. 
A thousand times have we been crucified.” 
(Florence Kiper Frank.) 


Among the many poets who have told the story of 
the Messiah is Longfellow. His Christus: A Mystery 
has for its first part a section called The Divine Tragedy. 
The whole of it is worth reading and study, but for our 
present purpose the part entitled, The Entry into 
Jerusalem, has the suggestions that mean most to us. 
Those whom Jesus has helped are represented by speak- 
ers in a dialogue, for example, the Syro-Phcenician 
woman and her daughter. They stand for that host 
who would offer praise to him. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. Give a probable outline of the events of Passion week. 

Give a word-picture of the view of the Holy City from the 
Mount of Olives. 

What prophecy did Jesus fulfil in riding into the city? 

What was Jesus’ purpose? 

How can you harmonize the Triumphal Entry with Jesus’ pre- 
vious announcement that he was about to die? 

. Give the meaning of the people’s song (Mark 11:9, 10). 

. How does the artist Doré suggest the universal elements in this 

story of the Triumphal Entry? 

. What were the consequences to the Jewish nation of the re- 

jection of Christ? 


CO ND oA Ne 


Oral Discussion 


1. It is said a little later that Jesus wept at the sight of Jerusalem 
from the Mount of Olives. Why was that? 


156 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


2. Who composed the multitude that spread branches on the 
road in honor of Jesus? 

3. What phrase in the account in Mark suggests that Jesus be- 
lieved that he would not see much more of the temple? 

4. Do you think that Jesus aroused false expectations in the 
minds of the people when he rode into the city according 
to the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9? Why? 

5. If the leaders of the nation had studied Isaiah 53 under the 
guidance of Jesus, what teachings would they have dis- 
covered there? 

6 Give the scene in English history between Queen Elizabeth 
~nd Walter Raleigh. 


Special Assignments 


1. Make a list ot the additions that Matthew and Luke make to 
Mark’s story of the Triumphal Entry. 

2. Write an account of the fulfilment of Jesus’ prediction in Luke 
19:43, 44. See Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book V; 
chapter 7. 


CHAPTER XIX 


COLLISION WITH THE PRIESTS 
Mark 11: 12-12: 12, pee aay 21: 12-22: 14; Luke 19: 


1. The Story of the Fig-tree. 

Monday morning Jesus returned to the city again 
and entered the temple. We do not know where he 
spent Sunday night nor the other nights of the week 
until Thursday. Matthew (21:17) states that he 
lodged in Bethany, while Luke (21:37) says that he 
was teaching every day in the temple and every night 
he lodged on the Mount of Olives. This is not neces- 
sarily a contradiction because Bethany was on the 
eastern slope of the mountain. It is pleasant to think 
that Jesus was entertained in the homes of his friends 
at Bethany after those hard days in the temple. Yet 
he may have purposely refrained from going to his 
friends’ houses after Sunday night to save them from 
suspicion. Moreover, the climate was warm and the 
nights pleasant so that the little group, consisting of 
Jesus and his disciples, may easily have spent the 
nights out-of-doors. 

On the way into the temple Monday morning Jesus 
came across a fig-tree. It had no fruit and he said it 
would never bear any. The next day it was observed 
by the disciples that the tree had begun to die and the 
story was told that Jesus had cursed it. But a compari- 
son of Luke 13: 6-9 with Mark 11: 12-25 suggests that 
Jesus was misunderstood. It was a parable of the Jew- 

157 


158 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


ish people. They had borne no fruit and there was no 
prospect that any good would come from them and he 
predicted that they would soon be destroyed. 


2. Doing the Impossible. 

In connection with that Parable of the Fig-tree Jesus 
uttered one of the most remarkable expressions which 
the Gospels have reported. ‘Have faith in God. 
Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this 
mountain, ‘Be thou taken up and cast into the sea’ and 
shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what 
he saith cometh to pass, he shall have it.” 

This statement has gained meaning for us because 
Jesus made such a revolution in human history. He 
believed that God could do wonderful things; he felt 
within him the spirit of God and it gave him a sense of 
great power. After his Resurrection his followers, mak- 
ing his faith their own, did many things that had hither- 
to seemed impossible. Without wealth or learning or 
political influence they started a movement that 
changed the Roman Empire. Within three hundred 
years it was declared Christian and the Emperor Con- 
stantine was converted to Christ. And since that time 
the Christian enterprise has gone forward developing 
in many directions, and gaining power through the cen- 
turies under the leadership of Christ. 


3. Cleansing the Temple. 

On Sunday Jesus had seen things in certain courts 
of the temple which had made him indignant. There 
were stalls, evidently hired from the high priest, in 
which dealers sold doves, lambs, and cattle for the 
sacrifices. Near by were money-changers to change for- 
eign coin into the Jewish currency which was necessary 


COLLISION WITH THE PRIESTS 159 


for those who wished to make offerings in the temple. 
Not only was the place dirty and noisy, but also the 
common people from the country places were being 
cheated by the greedy venders. He resolved to put 
an end to that. So next morning, probably with the 
support of many worshippers from Galilee, Jesus 
ordered the traders to get out, and overthrew the tables 
of the money-changers. He even assumed the office of 
the chief of the temple police and forbade the people to 
make a short cut from the city to the eastern suburbs 
through the temple porches. He followed this astonish- 
ing deed by an address in which he charged the priests 
with making God’s house a den of thieves. No doubt 
he would have ended his career at once had he not been 
backed up by popular sentiment. While the chief 
priests dared not touch him at the moment, yet they 
determined in their anger to destroy him. 


4. Kirchbach’s Painting. 

The painting entitled The Cleansing of the Temple is 
helpful to the student of the life of Jesus for several 
reasons. First, it helps us visualize the beauty of the 
temple building. In the background of the picture are 
the lofty columns, the ornamented doorway, and the 
massive stone work which remind us of the greatness 
of Herod’s temple even though the picture is not an 
accurate representation of it. Second, it pictures the 
authority of Jesus. He stands on the great stone steps 
with the crowd of traders and money-changers before 
him. They show signs of fear and awe. Jesus is de- 
picted as one who has greater authority than is repre- 
sented by the wonderful temple in the background. 
Third, the haste of the traders, the overthrown tables, 
and escaping animals give us an impression of the weak- 


160 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


ness and sinfulness of those who set themselves up in 
opposition to what is right and decent in God’s house. 


5. No Compromise. 


This act of Jesus, which openly defied the highest 
authority in the Jewish nation except the Roman goy- 
ernment, might seem unwise. Why did he not consider 
how quickly the Sanhedrin might destroy him if they 
should support the high priest in his rights over the 
temple? The Sanhedrin was composed of seventy-one 
distinguished Pharisees and Sadducees, and Jesus would 
have to consider well his course of action if he opposed 
them. A compromise that would permit him to go on 
preaching might have been better than his drastic 
action in the matter of the traders. But it seemed to 
him that the time had come for the leaders to make a 
decision. For many years they had done what was. 
wrong for profit, and in their pride had gone on their 
way without regard to the poverty and sorrows of the 
common people. 


6. They Dared Not Answer. 


Tuesday morning, when Jesus came again into the 
temple, the priests and scribes met him with a question. 
They asked him by what authority he had taken that 
action in the temple. The crowd gathered quickly to 
see what the Galilean prophet would say to the leaders 
in answer to their questions, Jesus perceived that the 
main thing was to discredit them in the eyes of the 
people and gain popular support. So he put a counter- 
question which left them in a dilemma. “Was the 
baptism of John from heaven or from men?” If they 
replied “from heaven,” Jesus would ask them why, then, 
they did not obey John. If they should answer “from 


COLLISION WITH THE PRIESTS 161 


men” they would arouse the antagonism of the com- 
mon people who regarded him as a prophet of God. 
The dismayed opponents of Jesus withdrew and had a 
consultation concerning their answer. This action in 
itself gave Jesus the advantage, but when they re- 
turned and said, ‘‘We can’t answer your question,’ 
the crowd was delighted. And Jesus said, “ Neither will 
I tell you by what authority I do these things.’ 

Then Jesus told a parable about a vineyard, which 
he applied directly to these leaders whom he had de- 
feated in debate. The vineyard had been rented by 
husbandmen who refused to pay the rent. They abused 
the representative of the owner, they badly wounded 
another man whom he sent to collect the money and 
finally when he sent his own son they killed him. What 
will the owner do? He will come and destroy the 
husbandmen and will give the vineyard to others. The 
Jewish nation is the vineyard, and the leaders will all 
be destroyed. 

Later some Sadducees, of whom the priests were 
leaders, tried to catch Jesus on the subject of the resur- 
rection, for the Sadducees did not believe in it. Again 
Jesus turns the argument against them and shows to 
the approving crowd that his questioners are ignorant 
of the Old Testament, in which they pretend to be- 
lieve. 


7. A Contrast between the Priests and a Choir of 
Children. 

Matthew reports a pretty scene in the temple courts 
after Jesus had cast out the money-changers and 
traders. A group of children, perhaps members of a 
temple choir, showed their admiration by singing in 
honor of the one who had shown his authority, “Ho- 


162 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


sanna to the Son of David.” This recognition by the 
children of Jesus as the Messiah aroused great indigna- 
tion among the priests and scribes, who stood scowling 
near by. But Jesus said, again reminding these sup- 
posedly learned men of their ignorance, “Did ye never 
read, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou 
hast perfected praise?’”’ 


or WwW Noe 


NID ORWN 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


- Tell the Parable of the Fig-tree and give the application to 


current events. 


. What strong expression did Jesus use concerning faith? 


Did his followers “do the impossible” in human history? 


. Give an account of the cleansing of the temple. 


How were the priests financially involved in the trading in 
the temple? . 


- What items does Kirchbach’s painting, The Cleansing of the 


Temple add to the Bible story? 


. What compromise might Jesus have made with the Jewish 


authorities that would have enabled him to continue 
preaching ? 


. Explain the point of Jesus’ answer to the priests and scribes 


when they asked him what his authority was for cleansing 
the temple. 


Oral Discussion 


- Where did Jesus spend his nights during Passion Week? 
- Why might it be unsafe for his friends if he allowed them to 


entertain him? 


. What do you mean by faith? 
. Give examples of institutions, like the Goodwill Farm in 


Maine, that are supported by faith. 


- When was the Roman Empire declared Christian? 


Special Assignments 


. Describe the extent of the trading in the temple, give a list 


of the animals sold and an account of the money-changers. 
See Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus, pages 367-376 
in Volume I. 


. Draw a plan of the temple that shows the porches in which the 


debates were carried on. 


CHAPTER XX 


CONDEMNATION OF THE JERUSALEM 
SCRIBES 


Mark 12: 13-14:9; Matthew 22: 15-23: 39; Luke 20: 20-21: 4. 


1. The Last Friendly Dinner. 


On Tuesday or Wednesday evening of this last week 
Simon, perhaps the father of Mary and Martha and 
Lazarus, gave a little banquet to Jesus in the hospitable 
home at Bethany. Besides the family there were present 
the disciples and other friends. Within three days 
Jesus would be crucified. This impending disaster 
must have made the meal a sad one, for few or none 
there could be ignorant of what was coming. An event 
happened which relieved the tension of feeling, and 
which has been reported all over the world. A woman, 
whom the Gospel of John identifies as Mary of Bethany 
(11:2), expressed her appreciation of what Jesus had 
done for her father, who had been a leper, and for her 
brother Lazarus, by anointing his head with precious 
ointment. It cost the price of a laborer’s wages for a 
year. One of the disciples, probably Judas (John 12: 4), 
criticised Mary and said the money should have been 
spent for the poor, but Jesus praised Mary and said 
that it would be the last time she could do anything 
for him. It has been suggested that this angered Judas, 
and that he went from the banquet to betray Jesus to 
the priests (Matthew 26: 14). 

Tennyson, in his In Memoriam (Section xxx1r), has 

163 


164 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


noted the significance of this scene in the life of Mary 
and the friends of the Master whom he had helped. 
Her eyes were homes of silent prayer, 
No other thought her mind admits 


But, he was dead, and there he sits, 
And he that brought him back is there. 


Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother’s face 
And rests upon the life indeed. 


2. The Scribes Try to Catch Jesus in Argument. 


The priests laid a trap for Jesus by sending a com- 
mittee of scribes and Herodians to discredit him in the 
eyes of the Roman government. When he appeared 
again in the temple the committee approached as if by 
chance and began to flatter him. They told him that 
they knew he was accustomed to tell just what he be- 
lieved to be the truth regardless of the consequences. 
They would like to know his idea about this matter of 
the Roman taxes: “Is it lawful to give tribute to 
Cesar?’”? Can a man be a good Jew and do that? 
Jesus saw their hypocrisy and decided to turn the laugh 
of the crowd on them. “Bring me a coin,” he said. 
Then getting the scribes to admit that they used such 
coins regularly and that they thus gave formal recogni- 
tion to the government that issued them, he Bhat 
suddenly to them and said, “‘ Whose is this image” 
the coin? They, with some “loss of face” as the Chi 
nese would say, took the coin and replied, “Czsar’s. 
Then Jesus, turning on his heel, exclaimed, ‘‘Give to 
Cesar the things that belong to him, and to God the 
things that belong to him.’”’ The people no doubt ap- 
plauded, and the scribes themselves “‘marvelled greatly 
at Him” (Mark 12:17). 





CONDEMNATION OF THE SCRIBES 165 


One of our foreign missionaries in Japan writes that 
his class of boys saw the joke on the scribes at once. 
He was studying Mark with them. One day the lesson 
was on this debate between Jesus and the scribes. The 
boys had been reading along soberly as usual until they 
came to the point where Jesus asked the scribes to bring 
a coin. When Jesus asked them whose image it was on 
the coin, the boys laughed aloud. “What is the 
matter?” the missionary asked. ‘‘Good joke on them,” 
replied the boys. 

Titian’s The Tribute Money is a study of one of the 
scribes who asked Jesus about the tribute. It is re- 
garded as one of the finest character sketches ever pro- 
duced. It contrasts the scribe with his tanned face, 
bronzed arms, and close-cropped hair with one of the 
most beautiful faces of Christ that has ever been 
painted. The sly, sharp face of the scribe makes us 
appreciate all the more the master teacher whose ex- 
pression reminds us that he was not one who could be 
bluffed or surpassed in skill by any one of that group 
of Pharisees who had tried to lay a trap for him. 


3. The Sincere Scribe. 

Many of the scribes were honest men. They were 
teachers belonging to the party of the Pharisees, and 
most of them were faithfully doing what they had been 
instructed to do, that is, to explain the law. By long 
habit and inheritance they had become petty and could 
not see things in the large. Those whom Jesus con- 
demned so bitterly were the selfish, rich leaders who 
had become proud and harsh. 

One of these sincere interpreters of the law was in- 
clined to think well of Jesus, and was much impressed. 
by his keen retorts to his cunning questioners. He 


166 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


asked, “What commandment is the first of all?”? The 


reply was, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”” 


“The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself.”” The scribe perceived the Master’s sincerity, 
and showed by his words and attitude that he liked 
Jesus. Jesus said to him, ‘Thou art not far from the 
Kingdom of God.” 


4. The Terrible Woes. 


In Matthew 23 Jesus made an indictment against 
the Pharisees which many modern Jews regard as 
unfair. They claim that his words were not accurate 
descriptions of the great mass of the best religious party 
in Israel. The Pharisees had a beautiful side to their 
life, they were wholly devoted to God’s great cause, 
they would give their own lives rather than break the 
law, as many of them had done, when in war the enemy 
had attacked them on the Sabbath. Rather than fight 
on the Sabbath, thousands of them gave up their lives 
without lifting a hand. 

They faithfully taught the religion of the Fathers to 
the children, they supported the services in the syna- 
gogue, and produced characters far above the average 
of their nation. The trouble with them was that as 
time went on they exaggerated the importance of the 
little things in the law. Every item was studied to 
know just what each counted for credit. Goodness 
consisted in having more merits than demerits, so the 
Pharisees had a long list of good things to do. The 
scribe was tempted to become a mere calculator of good 
deeds that would make a man worthy of salvation. 
The mind was centred on explanations of the law. 
These explanations formed the oral law which kept in- 
creasing in volume until it amounted to ten or twenty 


 EQEEVV—— ae i 


CONDEMNATION OF THE SCRIBES 167 


times the law of Moses. There was no time for the 
larger things of the spirit. Those who did not keep the 
law were outcasts and so unsuitable friends, so life be- 
came a thing of narrowness and pride. All the sym- 
pathy, unselfishness, and broad humanity was dried up 
at the roots in some of these men. 

Jesus declared that the scribes were hypocrites, bind- 
ing heavy burdens on the poor, while they went free; 
they loved vain show in dress, the chief seats at dinners 
and in the synagogue, they delighted in being called 
“Doctor.” They do not enter the Kingdom themselves 
nor let any one else get in, 7. e., their whole system pre- 
vents the enjoyment of true religion by themselves or 
anybody else. There was no logic or sense in many of 
their teachings; they led their pupils astray. They wash 
the outside of the cup but leave filthy the inside, and 
they themselves are whited sepulchres, whitewashed 
outside but inside full of dead men’s bones. They are 
serpents, and shall not escape hell. It is no wonder 
that the Pharisees became angry with Jesus. 


5. Transform Human Society, Do Not Destroy It. 
Mark 13 pictures the destruction of the world within 
a generation (v. 30), but the Sermon on the Mount 
urges the acceptance of principles that will make so- 
ciety permanent. The house should be built on the rock, 
Christians should be the light of the world, the salt of 
the earth. Our life should be built for endurance. The 
Parables of the Leaven and Mustard Seed imply the 
gradual winning of the world to Christ. Paul, the great 
interpreter of Christ, established churches at centres 
of light for generations to come. After the Resurrection 
the disciples, led by the Holy Spirit, which was the 
Spirit of Christ (Galatians 4:6; Philippians 1: 19) went 


168 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


forth to win the world to freedom, to growth, and. to 
transform the kingdoms of the world into the Kingdom 
of our Lord. 

In a case like this, when two explanations are possi- 
ble, it is our duty to choose that one which has the 
most arguments on its side. The vast majority of the 
New Testament passages teach that we ought to trans- 
form human society and remake human nature into 
the image of the Master, ‘‘seeing that ye have put off 
the old man with his doings, and have put on the new 
man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the 
image of him that created him.” 


6. An Application to Modern Times. 

Winston Churchill, in The Inside of the Cup, has made 
a study of the modern Pharisaism of wealth and pride. 
He pictures a church which has beautiful ceremonies, 
music, and correct style, but is cold. The poor people 
and the common folks in the tenements not far away 
would not be welcomed there. Eldon Parr, one of the 
leading characters in the story, is a typical Pharisee, 
while the pastor, Mr. Hodder, has had a vision of 
Christ and plans to transform his cold church into a 
real church of Christ. He declared that Mr. Parr and 
the others must shake out of their minds everything 
that they had thought that Christianity meant, church- 
going, creeds, charity, rites, and ceremony. ‘If they 
would be Christians . . . let them enter into life,, into 
the struggles going on around them to-day against 
greed, corruption, slavery, poverty, vice, and crime.” 
They must love as Christ loved, they must have faith— 
faith in God and faith in man. 


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CONDEMNATION OF THE SCRIBES 169 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Tell the story of the anointing of Jesus in Bethany. 
. To what event did Tennyson allude in his In Memoriam in 


the words ‘‘he was dead”’ ? 


. Tell the story of the “tribute to Cesar.’ Compare Titian’s 


interpretation of the scene. 
Make an argument in favor of the scribes. 


. What led one of them to commend Jesus? 


In what words did Jesus condemn many of the scribes? Is 
Matthew 23: 24 a witticism? 


. In the teachings of Jesus which sentiment predominates, the 


destruction of human society, or the reform of it and the 
building of an ideal world? 
What is the main point of Churchill’s The Inside of the Cup ? 


Oral Discussion 


. Who was Simon of Bethany? 
. What Gospel do we depend upon for the name of the woman 


who anointed Jesus at the banquet? 


. How did they try to catch Jesus in the debate on the resurrec- 


tion? 


. How did some of the Pharisees merit: the severe condemna- 


tion which Jesus pronounced upon them in Matthew 23? 


. Give the ‘‘Great Invective” of Jesus in your own words. 


Special Assignments 


. Read Tennyson’s In Memoriam and make a list of the refer- 


ences to Jesus or his teachings. 


. Write an essay on the mental superiority of Jesus as shown in 


the debates with the scribes and the Pharisees. See Hillis, 
The Influence of Christ in Modern Life. 


. Describe the belief of the Pharisees concerning the resurrection. 


CHAPTER X XI 


THE NIGHT OF THE BETRAYAL 


Mark 14: 12-52; Matthew 26: 17-56; Luke 22: 7-53; 
1 Corinthians 11: 23-26. 


1. Lord, Is It I? 


In Jerusalem there is a house which the guides point 
out to travellers as the one in which the Lord’s Supper 
took place. It would be interesting if we could be sure 
that it was the very place, but that is now impossible. 
Yet we may imagine Jesus and the disciples on that 
Thursday out there on the Mount of Olives making the 
arrangements to eat the Passover meal together (Mark 
14: 12-16), and we can think of them as crossing the 
brook Kidron, entering the city, and finding a welcome 
in the large upper room in the house owned by the 
mother of John Mark. The Passover lamb had been 
sacrificed at the temple and cooked at the house, and 
all the other articles of food made ready. 

They all reclined about the table, then Jesus blessed 
the first cup of wine, and poured water on their hands 
and prayed. Bitter herbs, dipped in vinegar, were 
passed around, then another cup of wine, and the chant- 
ing of Psalms 113, 114. A sop (a sort of lamb sandwich, 
garnished with bitter herbs) was dipped in vinegar and 
passed around before they ate the roast lamb. The 
third and fourth cups of wine were taken, followed by 
the chanting of Psalms 115-118. 

During the first part of the meal Jesus made an 

170 


EE — 


THE NIGHT OF THE BETRAYAL 171 


announcement that the tragedy that they felt to be 
impending was to be hastened by an act of treachery 
on the part of one of those reclining at the table. He 
said, ‘One of you shall betray me.” They cried, ‘‘Is 
eet?’ 

Da Vinci’s famous painting, The Last Supper, depicts 
the attitude of the disciples at that moment. One way 
to make vivid our thought of that scene is to study this 
great artist’s conception. He represents the group as 
sitting rather than reclining. In the centre of the table 
Jesus is pictured with six men on his right hand and 
six on his left. They are arranged in groups of three. 
Nearest Jesus on his right is John leaning on Peter and 
showing every sign of despair. The artist has given the 
traditional view of John as the gentle, beloved disciple 
and has put into his face the beauty and spirituality 
which really belonged to Jesus. It is reported that Da 
Vinci felt unable to do justice to the face of Jesus which 
he painted last. 

Next to John impulsive Peter is reaching forth his 
hand as much as to say, ‘‘He shall not be betrayed.” 
In front of Peter is Judas clutching the money bag and 
showing signs of fear. The group at that end of the 
table consists of Andrew who is holding up both hands 
in horror, James the son of Alpheus, reaching his left 
hand toward Peter as if asking him what this means, 
and at the end Bartholomew, leaning forward as if too 
astonished to speak. Nearest Jesus on his left hand 
are Thomas, James, and Philip. Philip is holding up 
his finger and asking, “Lord, Is it I?” James, one of 
the ‘Sons of Thunder”’ has both hands stretched out 
and is evidently shouting “It cannot be.’’ Philip has 
his hand upon his heart as if to declare his innocence. 
At the extreme left are Matthew, with both hands 


172 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


pointing toward Jesus as if to say, “He says so,” and 
Thaddzus leaning toward Simon evidently saying, 
“Tt is impossible.”’ Simon has his hands stretched for- 
ward with palms upward asserting his innocence. Jesus’ 
right hand, nearest Judas, is turned down and the left 
is turned upward. His whole attitude is expressive of 
purity, dignity, and strength. That he is the centre 
of interest in the picture, all the details indicate. 


2. The Broken Body. 


The statement of Jesus that one of those at the table 
would betray him took all the natural joy out of the 
occasion. There is no hint in Mark that Judas was 
known to be the traitor. The feeling of uncertainty 
and dismay must have continued throughout the meal. 
Judas did not leave the table, according to the first 
three Gospels, until the whole company left the room to 
go to an olive garden, where they expected to spend 
the night. The garden may have belonged to a friend 
of Jesus, and he and his disciples may have been sleep- 
ing there during the week. In this place was to be 
enacted that night “the most sacred and momentous, 
in a real sense the most tragic, drama in the world’s 
spiritual history.” No one of Jesus’ companions seemed 
to realize the meaning of the occasion, yet it was to 
change the whole trend and spirit of humanity. 

At the table the dazed group went through the Pass- 
over ceremony, as all good Jews were doing that night, 
while the Master talked with them about subjects 
which they afterward recalled with great distinctness. 
After the lamb was eaten and only the broken fragments 
were lying on the table, Jesus took a cake of unleavened 
bread, asked God’s blessing on it, and solemnly broke 
it into pieces and gave a piece to each one present, 


THE NIGHT OF THE BETRAYAL 173 


evidently not excluding Judas, saying, ‘‘Take ye, this 
is my body.” Then he took a cup of wine, prayed again, 
and they all drank of it, while he said, “This is my 
blood of the covenant, which is shed for many,’’ mean- 
ing that his death would bind God and men together in 
a new covenant, as at Mt. Sinai the old covenant had 
been ratified by blood (Exodus 24: 5-8). 

The Fourth Gospel contains four wonderful chapters 
said to have been spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper 
(14-17). “Let not your heart be troubled .. . I will 
pray the Father, and he shall give you another com- 
forter . . . the Spirit of Truth . . . he shall teach you 
all things. ... Iam the true vine. . . . Herein is my 
Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit... .. When 
he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into 
all truth. . . . These words spake Jesus, and lifted up 
his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come. 
_. . Lhave finished the work which thou gavest me to 
do!’? These and many other remarkable sayings make 
these chapters precious to Christians all over the world. 
They truly represent the spirit of the Master and deeply 
move serious readers with a sense of the divine presence 
that is ever in our midst. 

The influence of the First Communion has been felt 
wherever the Christian Church has been established. 
Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, Protes- 
tants of every kind, except Quakers, have from the 
beginning observed with sacred care this memorial of 
the Master. Untold millions in many nations have 
found consolation in this story of the last experiences 
of the Saviour and in the symbol of his sacrifice. Even 
more powerful for encouraging purity of heart has this 
service been, as Longfellow has suggested in his Children 
of the Lord’s Supper. 


174 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Blest are the pure before God! Upon purity and upon virtue 
Resteth the Christian Faith; she herself from on high is de- 
scended. . 
Strong as a man and pure as a child, is the sum of the doctrine, 
Which ane Divine One taught, and suffered and died on the 

cross for. 


3. The Scene in the Garden. 


When they had finished the Supper, they sang a hymn 
and went out into the darkness of the night. At this 
point or somewhere on the way from the city to the 
slope of Olivet, Judas left them and went to the priests 
to make arrangements for the arrest. If this Passover 
meal was held in the house of Mark’s mother, it is 
natural to think, as many have suggested, that John 
Mark followed behind the disciples, anxious, as any 
boy would be, to see what was going to happen. Mark 
14: 51 states that a young man had followed them and 
in the excitement of the arrest his only garment, a linen 
cloth which he had hastily thrown over him before 
leaving his mother’s house, was snatched from him. 
His presence there would enable him to see what hap- 
pened so that in later years he could preserve for us the 
facts in his Gospel. 

On the way from the house to the garden Jesus kept 
on talking with the group, for it was very late, toward 
midnight probably, and they would not be interrupted. 
Perhaps no one noticed the departure of Judas. Jésus 
said that they would all desert him because he was to 
be smitten and the flock scattered. Peter spoke up at 
once, ‘‘ Even if they all desert you, I will not.” Jesus 
sorrowfully replied, “Before the cock crows twice, thou 
shalt deny me thrice.” 

At the gate of Gethsemane he left eight of the dis- 
ciples, while he went on with Peter, James, and John 
to pray. He said to them, ‘‘ My heart is almost break- 


THE NIGHT OF THE BETRAYAL 175 


ing. You must stay here and keep watch.” He went 
on a little farther and threw himself on the ground and 
prayed that God, if possible, might spare him the trial 
that seemed about to come upon him. He came back 
to the three men who had formed the “inner circle” of 
his friends, and found them sleeping. Three times 
Jesus prayed alone in great distress of mind, and three 
times came back to find his supporters sleeping. 
“Simon,” he said, “‘are you sleeping? Were you not 
able to watch one hour?” 

Then Judas appeared leading a mob, armed with 
clubs and swords. He walked up to Jesus and kissed 
him as a sign that he was the man the priests had hired 
them to arrest. In the struggle that ensued some one 
(the Fourth Gospel states that it was Peter) struck off 
the ear of the high priest’s slave. Jesus stopped the 
fight, and rebuked the mob for coming after him in this 
violent way. Then they led him away. Sidney Lanier 
has enshrined the spirit of the Master during this 
scene in the following poem: 


Into the woods my Master went, 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 
Forspent with love and shame, 

But the olives they were not blind to him; ; 
The little gray leaves were kind to him; 
The thorn-tree had a mind to him, 

When into the woods he came. 


Out of the woods my Master went, 

And he was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When death and shame would woo him last, 
From under the trees they drew him last; 
’Twas on a tree they slew him—last 

When out of the woods he came. 


176 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


om 0 ND 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What arrangements did the disciples make for the Last 


Supper? 


. Describe the four groups at the table naming one disciple in 


each group, according to Da Vinci's painting. 


. What terrible announcement did Jesus make during the first 


part of the meal? How did it affect Peter, James, and 
John? 


. Significance of the bread and wine. 
. What addresses of Jesus at the Supper does the Fourth 


Gospel contain? 


. What influence has the Passover meal had on mankind? 


What evidence have we that Mark himself was present at 
the arrest of Jesus? 

What shows that the Twelve did not understand the serious 
danger that threatened Jesus? 


. Why did Jesus suffer agony in the Garden? 
. Describe the arrest. 


Oral Discussion 


What shows that Judas’ decision to betray Jesus was not 
made much before Thursday? 


. Evidences that Judas’ treachery was not deliberate, and that 


he had not really meant to bring about the death of Jesus. 


. In what one respect does Da Vinci’s picture differ from the 


account in Mark? 


. What is known about Gethsemane? 
. What assertion of his courage and faithfulness did Peter 


make? 
Special Assignments 


1. Write a paper on Da Vinci and his painting The Last Supper. 


Our Co 


See La Farge’s The Gospel Story in Art, pp. 220-227. 


. Make an argument against the theory that Jesus was des- 


tined by Divine Providence to die, and therefore Judas is 
not to be condemned. 


. The order of events in the modern Jewish Passover meal. 
. An outline of Longfellow’s Children of the Lord’s Supper. 
. Read W. A. Knight’s Outside a City Wall. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE TRIAL OF JESUS 


Mark 14: 53-15: 20; Matthew 26: 57-27 :/31; 
Luke 22 : 54-23: 25. 


1. The Story of Peter’s Denial. 

Peter was so sure that he would never desert Jesus 
(Mark 14:29) that it is surprising to see how quickly 
he denied him. From the garden he had followed the 
high priest’s mob to the palace in the Upper City. It 
was cold at three or four o’clock in the morning in the 
open court of the high priest’s house, and the soldiers 
had a fire of live coals. Peter stole in to get warm; all 
the other disciples had fled in the darkness, knowing 
that they could not help the Master. Moreover, this 
arrest seemed fatal to their cause. One of the servant 
girls noticed Peter by the fire and said, ‘‘You were 
with the Nazarene.’”’ Peter taken by surprise hastily 
denied it and declared that he did not know what she 
meant. Soon the group around the fire joined in with 
the girl and said that Peter was a Galilean because he 
had the brogue. Then Peter earnestly and with an oath 
denied that he knew Jesus at all. This was the third 
time, and just then he heard the second cockcrowing at 
dawn. At that moment, according to the Gospel of 
Luke, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Harrach, 
in his picture called Peter’s Denial, shows Jesus passing 
through a gallery just above Peter, so that he could hear 
the denial and the oath. It was a most unfortunate 
combination of circumstances for Peter. He had only 

177 


178 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


a little while ago slashed the ear of one of the high 
priest’s servants, and now there confronts him near 
the fire a cousin of the victim of Peter’s sword and said 
to him, ‘Did I not see thee in the garden with him?” 
It was too much for Peter and he gave way. When he 
saw Jesus looking at him he went out and wept bitterly. 
There is no comparison between the treachery of Judas 
and Peter’s sudden breakdown. Yet Peter evidently 
had a weakness which Paul afterward noticed (Gala- 
tians 2: 11-13), a tendency to give way for the mo- 
ment when he was suddenly tempted. In the later 
history of the church he became a great and noble 
leader. 


2. The Preliminary Investigation. 


When the high priest’s officers led Jesus into the 
palace there had already assembled many members 
of the Sanhedrin, especially those belonging to the 
Sadducees. For this movement against Jesus had been 
occasioned largely by his cleansing of the temple which 
affected the pocketbooks of the priests. These members 
of the Sanhedrin so hastily summoned before daylight 
had no authority to condemn Jesus. They simply made 
a preliminary examination. They had gathered what 
witnesses they could find, but the witnesses did not 
agree. Finally the high priest asked Jesus if he was the 
Messiah. To that question Jesus made an answer which 
gave the priest the opportunity for which he was look- 
ing. Jesus said: “I am; and ye shall see the son of man 
sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the 
clouds of heaven.” The high priest now rent his gar- 
ments in token of his abhorrence of this blasphemy, 
and the assembly voted that Jesus was worthy of 
death. In the uproar that ensued some took occasion 


THE TRIAL OF JESUS 179 


to spit on Jesus, and blindfolding him struck him and 
asked him to guess who hit him. 


3. The Trial before Pilate. 


Early in the morning some hours after the preliminary 
investigation which we have described, the Sanhedrin 
had another meeting, perhaps for the purpose of con- 
firming their action before daylight which may have 
been unlawful. As soon as the procurator’s office was 
open they hurried Jesus to the barracks where Pilate’s 
office was located and stated their case before the 
Roman governor, for he alone could pronounce the 
sentence of death. Pilate asked Jesus, ‘‘Art thou the 
King of the Jews?” He answered, ‘You say so.” 
Pilate was astonished that Jesus made no further de- 
fence. The fine reserve and dignity of the prisoner must 
have appealed to the Roman governor, and according 
to the other Gospels he did try to save Jesus. The addi- 
tions to the story in Matthew, Luke, and John should 
be carefully studied, but Mark is sufficient to give us a 
clear idea of what happened. The admission by 
Jesus that he was the Messiah gave the Sadducees, the 
priestly party, evidence that would influence Pilate. 
No priests are named in Mark, but it is clear from the 
other Gospels and the records of the time that Annas 
was the retired high priest and Caiaphas, his son-in- 
law, was the high priest that presented the case to 
Pilate. ~The Roman governor would feel it important 
to take action, for a new Messiah from troublesome 
Galilee would have a disturbing effect on political con- 
ditions. 

The priests, fearing that Pilate might defer action, 
started the cry that Barabbas be released (Luke 23: 18), 
according to the custom by which one prisoner should 


180 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


be released at a feast. The mob took up the cry that 
Barabbas, not Jesus, be set free. It seems that Barabbas 
had been the leader of a rebellion, perhaps of the 
Zealots. This would make him popular among many 
of the Jews, even though in the riot he had killed a 
man. Many years ago it was the custom in Massa- 
chusetts to release a prisoner at Thanksgiving time; he 
would naturally be one that was for some reason popu- 
lar. Jesus had no one to speak for him in this crowd 
which was dominated by the priests, so Pilate freed 
Barabbas and delivered Jesus to be crucified. 


4. A Great Painting. 


Many details of the trial of Jesus are given in 
Munkaesy’s Christ before Pilate. A thorough study of 
this picture is important for one who would get all the 
New Testament statements about the trial vividly in 
his mind. The scene is laid in the Pretorium, part of 
which was used for barracks for the Roman soldiers 
who guarded the Roman interests in Jerusalem. The 
building, sometimes called Antonia, was located at the 
northwest boundary of the temple platform. 

Munkacsy pictures Pilate seated on a throne in the 
judgment-hall. In front of him there are distinguished 
priests and lawyers in rich robes that add beauty to 
the scene. The high priest, standing on steps that lead 
to the throne, is making a speech with gestures that 
indicate great earnestness. A Pharisee or some im- 
portant member of the Sanhedrin is standing with his 
back against the wall, not far from the throne, and 
showing in his attitude contempt for Jesus. In a front 
seat between the high priest and Jesus sits a fat, com- 
placent business man elegantly dressed, with his head — 
canted, teeth set, and hands placed on his knees, as if — 





THE TRIAL OF JESUS 181 


he were saying to Jesus, “You tried to break up our 
trade in the temple, now we'll break you.” 

A Roman soldier with a spear holds the mob from 
crowding too close to the throne. Jesus is in the centre, 
dressed in white, and conspicuous against the dark 
background of the people pressing into the room. Near 
Jesus is a woman holding a young child, anxious evi- 
dently that the babe should get an impression from the 
scene that would make the Christian faith a precious 
thing. The face of Christ is strong, his bearing digni- 
fied, and he seems to demand from Pilate recognition 
of the justice of his cause and the greatness of the 
principles which he represents. 

Pilate has on a Roman toga. Behind him are the 
letters S. P. Q. R. (Senatus Populus Que Romanus) 
which together with the symbols of the power of the 
empire are impressive in contrast with the lack of 
support which Jesus has. But Pilate shows more weak- 
ness than Jesus because he is nervously working his 
hands, as though uncertain what course to pursue. 
His face is that of a man who is being judged, while 
Jesus is the real judge. History has taken the side of 
the prisoner in this case and pronounced its verdict 
against the Roman governor. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. Tell the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus. 

. How does Harrach in his painting bring Jesus into the scene? 

. What may be said in Peter’s behalf? 

. Give Mark’s brief account of the stages of the trial as found 
in 14: 55-64 and 15: 1-5. 

Why were the priests the leaders in seeking the condemna- 
tion of Jesus? 

. What admission of Jesus led the Sanhedrin to pass judgment 

against him? 


on PWHe 


RPO Ne 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


. Name several incidents in the trial not mentioned by Mark, 


but reported in Matthew, Luke, and the Fourth Gospel. 


. Tell of the choice of Barabbas by the multitude. 
. From these scenes show the dignity and strength of Jesus. 
. Contrast Jesus with Pilate in Munkacsy’s painting. 


Oral Discussion 


. Name four little details of the journey from Gethsemane to 


the palace of Annas. John 18: 12-16. 
In their haste what did the members of the Sanhedrin do 
that makes the trial seem illegal? 


. Where was the Pretorium? What was it used for? 
. Why did the high priest bring Jesus before the Roman 


governor? 
Special Assignments 


. Read Daniel 7:13, 14 and Mark 14:61, 62, and write a 


statement of the meaning of Jesus’ claim in the light of 
his decision to die. See Chapter XVI. 


. Read Mrs. Browning’s poem, The Meaning of the Look, and 


present selections from it to the class. 


. Read Edwin Arnold’s The Light of the World. 





CHAPTER X XIII 


THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 


I Corinthians 1: 18-2:2; Mark 15: 21-47; Matthew 27: 32-66; 
Luke 23 : 26-56. 


1. Brief Statement of the Facts according to Mark. 


From the judgment-hall’ of Pilate the soldiers led 
Jesus to the open court in the Pretorium where they 
made fun of him and abused him. When the officers 
were ready to start to the place of execution, the cross 
was evidently laid on Jesus but soon he was relieved of 
this heavy burden because of his weakness from fasting 
and loss of blood and it was carried by Simon of Cyrene, 
who happened to be passing by. The procession was 
followed by a considerable number of people, for it was 
approaching nine o’clock; Roman soldiers, officers, 
members of the Sanhedrin, a rabble of Jews, and several 
women were among those who went to Golgotha, a 
skull-shaped hill, not far away yet outside the city 
walls. It would be contrary to the Jewish laws of clean 
and unclean to bury within the city. One old law reads: 
“They do not bury the dead therein.” The hill was 
identified by General Gordon as the mound about three 
hundred feet northwest of Herod’s gate, which the 
Jews call, “The Place of Stoning,” and the Garden 
Tomb is close by. Others believe that the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre on Christian Street contains the 
real tomb, and travellers may see it in the basement. 

When Golgotha was reached, the attendants offered 
the usual wine and myrrh to quiet his nerves, but Jesus 

183 


184 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


refused it. The soldiers placed him on the cross, spiked 
his hands to the crosspiece and his feet to the beam, 
then set it upright in the hole which they had dug for it. 
Then they unconcernedly went to playing dice, as they 
sat down near by, and cast lots for the garments which 
Jesus had worn. On the crosspiece was inscribed, 
THE KING OF THE JEWS. Two thieves were cruci- 
fied at the same time, the one on his right hand, the 
other on his left. 

Hardened Jews passing by shouted, “Ha, thou that 
destroyest the temple . . . save thyself,” and priests 
mocking said, ‘‘He saved others; himself he cannot 
save.” The thieves also reproached him. At twelve 
o’clock darkness came on and covered the land for three 
hours. At three o’clock Jesus quoted in agony Psalm 
22:1, as at the beginning of his career he had referred 
to Psalm 2:7. The Roman centurion there on duty 
said, ‘Surely this was a son of God.” The faithful 
women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to minister 
to the disciples stood a little way off. They were the 
two Marys, Salome, and others. But the disciples 
dared not appear for fear of arrest. 


*‘ At the cross her station keeping 
Stood the mournful mother weeping, 
Where he hung, the dying Lord; 
For her soul of joy bereaved, 
Bowed with anguish, deeply grieved, 
Felt the sharp and piercing sword.” 
Stabat Mater. 
2. The Cross a Triumph. 


Throughout the trial and the Crucifixion, which is the 
most terrible form of death, Jesus’ conduct won the 
admiration of all serious observers. His dignity and his 
calm, confident bearing had its influence even on Pilate, 
and deeply moved the Roman centurion. The cross was 





THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 185 


a personal triumph for Christ. It showed the power of 
character over failure and death. It won the greatest 
intellect of that century—Paul of Tarsus. It changed 
him from a proud Pharisee, a murderer of Christians, to 
a humble preacher of the gospel. At Corinth, years 
later, he said that he had determined not to know any- 
thing in that city of Greek philosophy save Jesus Christ 
the crucified. Although he was prepared to talk phi- 
losophy with the ablest of them, his one message was 
Christ crucified—the power of God. And in the strength 
of that power arising out of the Crucifixion, Paul 
started European Christianity. 

It won the Roman Empire. Eusebius, a historian of 
the fourth century, said that the Emperor Constantine 
himself told him the following story. At about midday, 
when the sun was beginning to decline, he saw with his 
eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above 
the sun, and bearing the inscription, “By this conquer.”’ 
At the sight he was amazed and his whole army also, for 
they too saw the miracle. That night in a dream the 
Christ of God appeared to him and commanded him 
to procure a standard for his army made in the likeness 
of the cross, and to use it as a safeguard in all engage- 
ments with his enemies. Constantine obeyed the com- 
mand and suspended a streamer of purple from a spear. 
On it was a gold crown with the first two letters of the 
name of Christ. As a reward he had complete victory 
in the battle which followed. 

Whatever you may think of this story it at least 
represents the fact that within three hundred years the 
Roman Empire, which had hung Christ on the cross, 
bowed down to that Crucified Christ as Lord over all. 
Constantine was baptized as a member of the Christian 
church in 337 A. D., but as early as 323 at the defeat of 


186 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Licinius, coruler with Constantine, Christianity was 
declared to be the religion of the realm. 


3. Our Most Sacred Memorial. 

It is difficult to stretch our imaginations to take in 
the greatness of Christ’s conquest of mankind. Of 
many evidences we may mention one or two that we 
may try to realize the wonder of the achievement. 
Why do ladies wear a little gold cross? You might say 
that they do it because it is an almost universal custom. 
But how did that come to be so? Because Christ by his 
death made it sacred. It stands also for purity and 
safety, and millions of women to-day regard it as a 
real protection. 

A brilliant American leader, Raymond Robins, saw 
the white cross on a church spire in Alaska, when he was 
a young gold-digger. The cross and the priest that 
nobly lived a life of service there, cleansed his purpose. 
Through him thousands of students have had the vision 
of the Christ. The cross on the church spires! It is 
the world’s symbol of hope. 


4. The Cross in Art and Music. 


Munkacsy and Rubens and many other artists have 
been profoundly influenced by the cross; and in turn 
they have strengthened Christianity by their wonderful 
paintings. Munkacsy’s Christ on Calvary reproduces 
the Bible story of the crucifixion with dramatic power. 
It represents the Saviour at that moment when in half 
delirium he cries out: “My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me?” His eyes are turned toward heaven. 

Vividly the artist depicts the three groups of people 
against the threatening sky. The hard-hearted Caiaphas 
is still arguing and gesticulating. His companion is 


THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 187 


quiet and troubled at the tragedy. A prominent mem- 
ber of the Sanhedrin is riding horseback, and as he looks 
back toward the cross, signs of satisfaction appear on 
his face. The little group of women that followed 
Jesus are at the foot of the cross. Jesus’ mother is 
embracing his feet. The disciple John is standing at 
the right, hopeless and helpless. Students of the life 
of Jesus should spend time on these pictures, for they 
portray better than words the meaning of the scene 
and at the same time enable one to imagine the details. 
Over sixty famous artists have given the world their 
interpretations of this scene. 

It would be a valuable lesson to list all the pieces 
of music that have been inspired by the cross—the 
oratorios, cantatas, anthems, and hymns. They would 
constitute a most impressive testimony to the power of 
Calvary. Who does not know: 


“In the cross of Christ I glory, 
Towering o’er the wrecks of time’’? 


Stainer’s Cantata The Crucifixion and Dubois’ Medi- 
tation, The Seven Last Words of Christ are more power- 
ful than great sermons. ‘‘Each Handel taxed himself 
for music sweet enough for his hymns of praise. . . . 
Architects taxed themselves to build cathedrals worthy 
of him whom the heaven of heavens could not contain. 
Painters vied with each other in creating seraphs and 
angels beautiful enough to adorn the walls of Christ’s 
sanctuary. Sculptors went everywhere searching out 
marble white enough for Christ’s forehead.” 


5. Some Explanations of the Power of the Cross. 


We instinctively look for a cause of changes that 
occur. What, then, changed the disciples from cowards 


188 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


to heroes? What won the world? Paul says the cross. 
He also says the Resurrection, but the Resurrection 
was only the sequel to the scene on Golgotha. 

The Fourth Gospel says: ‘And I, if I be lifted up 
will draw all men unto me. This he said signifying 
what death he should die” (John 12:32, 33). Several 
reasons have been given to explain the drawing power 
of the cross. (1) It was the greatest exhibition of self- 
sacrificing love that the world has ever seen. ‘Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
life for his friends.” Jesus taught that this great love 
was at the very centre of the world, that what he had 
done God would do. God was the Good Shepherd. At 
any cost he would go after the one lost lamb. No matter 
how sinful the prodigal, God would still love him and 
welcome him home. To show this to mankind Jesus 
was willing to endure shame and agony. 

(2) The cross brings to men’s consciousness the 
awfulness of sin. Men move along serenely unconscious 
of the terrible results of their low ideals. Suddenly 
their intemperance, or the hardness of their pride, ends 
in calamity and they are shocked into seeing the mean- 
ing of their sin. So Jesus’ cross reveals the blackness of 
men’s hearts, and sin can never again be accepted 
complacently. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Give the facts about the Crucifixion. 

. Two views about the location of Golgotha. 

. How was the Roman centurion affected by the scene? 

. How did the cross affect Paul’s life? 

. Tell the story about Constantine’s conversion. 

. Give examples of the use of the cross as a sacred symbol. 
. What influence has the cross had on art and music? 


“IO Orie GON 


cow 


He» 09 Noe 


THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 189 


. Describe Munkacsy’s Christ on Calvary. 
. Two ways in which the cross has been a power in Christianity. 


Oral Discussion 


. What incident made Simon of Cyrene remembered ? 
. How does Luke differ from Mark in describing the thieves on 


the cross? 


. Name some hymns that were inspired by the cross. 
. What did Lowell mean when in his Present Crisis he wrote, 


“Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns 
not back?” 
Special Assignments 


. Describe the Via Dolorosa. See Baedeker’s Palestine and 


Syria, 49-51. 


. Write the last seven words of Christ on the cross. 
. Read Herbert Gray’s The Christian Adventure. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


VICTORY OVER DEATH 
I Corinthians 15; Mark 16; Matthew 28; Luke 24; Acts 2: 22-36. 


1. The Sudden Change in the Disciples. 

No fact in human history is more certain than that 
the disciples were suddenly transformed from a hope- 
less, despondent, and scattered group to the hopeful, 
courageous men who went forth to establish the Chris- 
tian Church. On Friday night Christ was in the tomb, 
and there was not a person on earth, so far as we can 
learn, that continued to believe in him as the Messiah. 
On Sunday Peter and the others were astonished to 
discover that Jesus was alive, and from that moment 
no obstacle or peril could keep them from preaching 
and teaching and establishing churches in the name of 
the living Christ. 

Paul, the earliest writer on the Resurrection, makes 
this important statement: “I passed on to you what I 
had myself received, namely, that Christ died for our 
sins as the scriptures had said, and that he was seen by 
Cephas, then by the twelve; after that, he was seen by 
over five hundred brothers all at once, the majority of 
whom survive to this day, though some have died; 
after that, he was seen by James, then by all the 
apostles, and finally he was seen by myself” (I Co- 
rinthians 15: 3-8). Paul’s experience is strong evidence 
that Jesus actually rose from the dead, either physically 
or spiritually. We cannot doubt that the tomb was 

190 


ae — 


me 





VICTORY OVER DEATH 191 


empty. The immediate establishment of Christianity 
is proof, if anything can be proven on this earth, of the 
essential fact of the Resurrection. 


2. Substance of the Gospel Reports. 


It is not surprising that in the excitement of that 
Sunday the disciples and the women should give differ- 
ent accounts of what happened. ‘The first three 
Gospels tell many incidents, which may be summarized 
in the following brief statement. The two Marys and 
Salome came to the burial-place early Sunday morning 
and finding the tomb empty reported it to the disciples. 
Peter and John ran to see if their story was true, and 
found that the tomb was empty, as they had said. Peter 
and John told the rest of the disciples. Mary saw Jesus 
near the tomb. Jesus afterward appeared to Peter, to 
the two men who were going to Emmaus, and to the 
disciples in Jerusalem on the evening of the same day. 


3. The Easter Message. 


We do not know in what body Jesus rose, for Paul 
does not enable us to understand it fully; we only know 
that it was a spiritual body (I Corinthians 15: 35-50). 
But we do know that death gave way to life, and be- 
cause Jesus won this victory, we expect to have eternal 
life. This was the supreme test. The Buddha died 
and made death no easier; Zoroaster died and the valley 
of death was not illumined for those that followed; 
Mohammed died and added no hope to that which the 
world already had obtained from the Old Testament; 
Jesus was crucified as a result of his deliberate choice 
and he vanquished the power of the King of Terrors. 
Millions have said with Paul (I Corinthians 15: 54, 55): 


192 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


Death is swallowed up in victory, 
O Grave, where is your victory? 
O Death, where is your sting? 


The victory is ours, thank God! He makes it ours by our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 


There is a tendency on the part of modern writers 
to give up this great hope. An example of this is found 
in a poem by Sara Teasdale: 


“But, oh, my frail immortal soul 
That will not sleep forevermore, 
A leaf borne onward by the blast, 
A wave that never finds the shore !”’ 


In contrast with this we may read the following verses 
by Whittier which well represent the attitude of Jesus 
toward the future life: 


““So when Time’s veil shall fall asunder, 
The soul may know 
No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, 
Nor sink the weight of mystery under, 
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. 


And all we shrink from now may seem no new revealing; 
Familiar as our childhood’s stream, 
Or pleasant memory of a dream 

The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. 


Serene and mild the untried light 
May have its dawning; 
And, as in summer’s northern night 
The evening{and the dawn unite, 
The sunset hues of time blend with the soul’s new morning.” 


It is the way that Jesus met death and the fact that 
he lived beyond death that has helped men meet the 
mysteries and tragedies of their own lives. What man- 
kind needs is not simply the picture of a victorious life, 
but the power to multiply that kind of life. History is 





VICTORY OVER DEATH 193 


dotted over with individuals who seemed almost ideal, 
but they died without multiplying their kind. One 
alone has lived the perfect life and also inspired mil- 
lions upon millions to strive for the same. 


4. Easter in Art. 


Perhaps the most human of all the paintings of the 
Resurrection is Von Uhde’s Easter Morning. A poorly 
dressed girl is standing by a tomb in the trees beside a 
solitary path. She is weeping bitterly. Christ appears 
and gently touches her arm to comfort her. He seems 
like a common man, though gentler and purer as he 
comforts her. It brings the risen Christ nearer to our 
thought because all the elaborate surroundings have 
disappeared, and there are no angels or persons that 
remind us of the apostles. 

The most beautiful picture of the Resurrection is 
Ender’s Holy Women at the Tomb. It shows the two 
Marys and Salome within the tomb where they have 
come to anoint the body of Christ. They find the body 
gone, and a young man dressed in white, an angel, who 
says to them, “He is not here, he is risen.” 


5. The Ascension. 


In Luke (24: 50-53) and Acts (1: 9-11) are descrip- 
tions that fitly end the gospel story. From the Mount 
of Olives Jesus is taken up to heaven. It is necessarily 
presented to us inadequately, both in pictures and in 
literature. Men do not realize the spiritual truth unless 
it is clothed with physical form. 

From heaven (Acts 2:33 and John 14 and 16) the 
Holy Spirit descended on the believers, and gave them 
power to win the world to Christ. In a sense this com- 


194 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 


ing of the Spirit was the return of Christ. He became 
a presence walking with his followers every day. They 
could not see nor hear this presence with them, yet it 
was as real to them as the dearest earthly friend. Paul 
was able, almost to identify himself with this invisible 
Christ; “‘for me to live is Christ.”’ To Saint Francis 
of Assisi he was more real and powerful than any human 
being could be. ‘‘To those who obey him, whether they 
be wise or simple, he will reveal himself, in the toils, the 
conflicts, the sufferings, which they shall pass through 
in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall 
learn in their own experience who he is.” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. What sudden change took place in the disciples? 

. Tell the story of Christ’s walking with the two men toward 
Emmaus. 

. What testimony did Paul, the earliest New Testament writer, 
bear to the Resurrection ? 

. What is the substance of the Gospel statements concerning 
the Resurrection? 

. What did Paul say concerning the resurrection body? 

. What difference in their influence on the belief in a future 
a a a see in the Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed, and 

st 

. Describe the influence of the Resurrection on art and literature. 

. Tell the story of the ascension. 

. Give one er, that the Holy Spirit came upon the follow- 
ers of Christ 


Oo Be WO Ne 


oon 


Oral Discussion 


. Are the disagreements in the’Gospels’ story’of the Resurrection 

necessarily evidences that the story is not true? 

. How do Matthew and Luke differ as to the place where Christ 
appeared after the Resurrection? 

Do you think there were any persons among Jesus’ followers 
who anticipated his rising from the grave? 

. Why is Paul’s testimony convincing? 


Pp WwW HD 





VICTORY OVER DEATH 195 


Special Assignments 


1. Write a full description of the painting by Ender entitled The 
Holy Women at the Tomb. 

2. Describe the scene in Acts 2 which shows the power Christ 
exerted after the Resurrection. 

3. Write an essay on “Easter.” 

4. Read the poems on “The Eternal Value and Continuity of 
Life” in Merrifield’s Modern Religious Verse and Prose. 








APPENDIX I 


REFERENCE BOOKS FOR STUDY 


porary, fe I., Life and Teaching of Jesus. New York: Macmil- 

an, 1924. 

Barton, G. A., Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Macmillan, 1922. 

Pian F., Life and Teachings of Jesus. New York: Scribners, 
1913. 
Phelps, E. 8., The Story of Jesus Christ. Boston: Houghton Mif- 

flin and Co., 1897. 
Burton and Mathews, Life of Christ. Chicago: University of Chi- 
cago Press, 1901. 

Ae H. H., Jesus—Our Standard. New York: Abingdon Press, 

18. 

Smith, David, The Days of His Flesh. New York: Hodder and 
Stoughton, 1905. 

_ Glover, T. R., The Jesus of History. New York: Association 

Press, 1917. 

|. Gilkey, C. W., Jesus and Our Generation. Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, 1925. 

Simkhovitch, V. G., Toward the Understanding of Jesus. New 
York: Macmillan, 1921. 

Glover, T. R., The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Em- 
pire. London: Methuen, 1909. 

New Century Commentaries on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 
Edinburgh, Oxford Press. 

Bailey, A. E., The Gospel in Art. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1916. 

Calkin, J. B., Historical Geography of the Buble. Philadelphia: 
Westminster Press, 1915. 

Rall, H. F., New Testament History. New York: The Abingdon 
Press, 1914. 

Rhees, ay The Life of Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Scrib- 
ners, 1917. 

Moehlman, C. H., The Unknown Bible. New York: Doran, 1926. 

hen F. L., The Man of Nazareth. New York: Macmillan, 
1914. 

Rauschenbusch, Walter, The Social Principles of Jesus. New 
York: Association Press, 1917. 

Fosdick, H. E., The Manhood of the Master. New York: Associa- 
tion Press, 1915, 


197 


198 APPENDIX 


Clarke, Lig a The Ideal of Jesus. New York: Scribners, 1911. 
Graves, F. P., What Did Jesus Teach? New York: Macmillan, 
uy 


919. 
SERA J., A People’s Life of Christ. New York: Revell, 
1920. 





Scott, E. yy. The Ethical Teaching of Jesus. New York: Macmil- 
192 


lan, 1 


Forbush, W. B., The Life of Jesus. New York: Scribners, 1912. 


APPENDIX II 


BOOKS FOR GENERAL READING 


Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis. 

Knight, W. A., Outside the City Wall. _ Boston: Pilgrim Press. 

Wallace, Lew, Ben Hur. New York: Harper’s, 1880. 

shan Dyke, Henry, Companionable Books. New York: Scribners, 
1922. 

Van Dyke, Henry, The Blue Flower. New York: Scribners, 1902. 

Cabot, R. C., What Men Live By. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and 
Company, 1914. 

Merrifield, Fred, Modern Religious Verse and Prose. New York: 
Scribners. 

Oldham, J. H., Christianity and the Race Problem. New York: 
Doran, 1924. 

Hillis, N. D., The Influence of Christ on Modern Life. New York: 
Macmillan, 1900. 

| Bushnell, Horace, Character of Jesus. New York: Scribners, 1909. 

Gray, Herbert, The Christian Adventure. New York: Association 
Press, 1924. 

Ruskin, John, Sesame and Lilies. 

Ruskin, John, Stones of Venice. 

Palmer, G. H., Life of Alice Freeman Palmer. Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin, 1908. 

Stelzle, Charles, An Hast Side American. 

Churchill, Winston, The Inside of the Cup. New York: Macmil- 
lan, 1913. 

Steiner, E. A., From Alien to Citizen. 

Antin, Mary, The Promised Land. 

Fosdick, H. E., The Meaning of Prayer. New York: Association 
Press, 1915. 

Crow, M. F., Christ in the Poetry of To-Day. New York: The 
Woman’s Press, 1918. . 

Simpson, P. C., The Fact of Christ. New York: Revell, 1900. 

Speer, R. E., The Principles of Jesus. New York: Revell, 1902. 

Horton, R. F., How the Cross Saves. New York: Revell. 

Sherwood Eddy and Kirby Page, Makers of Freedom. New York: 
Doran, 1926. ’ 


. 


199 


APPENDIX III 


LIST OF ARTISTS AND PAINTINGS 


Cornicelius, Christ Tempted by Satan, 38 
Correggio, Holy Night, 29 

Da Vinci, The Last Supper, 68 

Del Sarto, John the Baptist, 27 

Doré, Christ Entering Jerusalem, 153 

Du Mond, Baptism of Christ, 34 

Ender, Holy Women at the Tomb, 193 

Harrach, Peter’s Denial, 177 

Hofmann, Christ and the Doctors, 16, 30, 36 
Hofmann, Christ in Gethsemane, 104 

Hofmann, Christ and the Rich Young Man, 105 
Kirchbach, Cleansing of the Temple, 159 
Michael Angelo, Moses, 94 

Millais, Christ in House of His Parents, 63 
Munkacsy, Christ Before Pilate, 180 
Munkacsy, Christ on Calvary, 186 

Raphael, The Transfiguration, 142 

Rubens, Christ in House of Simon, 123 
Siemiradski, Christ with Mary and Martha, 148 
Soord, The Lost Sheep, 132 

Tissot, Youth of Jesus, 36 

Tissot, Jesus in the Synagogue, 55 

Tissot, Sermon on the Mount, 75 

Tissot, The Prodigal’s Return, 96 

Titian, Tribute Money, 165 

Von Uhde, Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me, 150 
Von Uhde, Easter Morning, 193 

Zimmermann, Christ and the Fishermen, 67 


All of the pictures mentioned in this book may be obtained 
from the following publishers: 

Perry Pictures Company, Malden, Mass. 

The Pilgrim Press, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.; 19 South 
La Salle Street, Chicago, Ills. 

The New York Sunday-School Commission, 416 Lafayette 
Street, New York City. 


200 





APPENDIX 3 201 


A special arrangement has been made with the Perry Pictures 
Company, by which they have agreed to furnish the following 
twelve pictures in an envelope, postpaid, for twenty-four cents: 


Christ and the Doctors. 

Christ and the Fishermen. 
Christ and the Rich Young Man. 
The Transfiguration. 

Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem. 
Christ Before Pulate. 

Christ on Calvary. 

Holy Women at the Tomb. 
The Last Supper. 

Sermon on the Mount. 

Tribute Money. 

Denial by Saint Peter. 


Teachers are advised to procure this group for each student. 
By using these pictures in connection with the text-book, much 
interest has been aroused in the classes conducted by the authors 
during the past seven years. 

The Pilgrim Press is prepared to furnish a series called Religion 
in Art, consisting of 100 pictures included in Bailey’s Art Studies 
in the Life of Christ, now out of print. This group of 100 pictures, 
with artistic and historical notes on the back of each one, may 
be purchased for $2.00, postpaid. The series contains all the pic- 
tures referred to in the present volume except Du Mond’s Bap- 
tism of Christ, Michael Angelo’s Moses, Tissot’s Youth of Jesus, 
and Del Sarto’s John the Baptist. The price of Religion in Art is 
$2.00, but the pictures may be bought separately, any selection 
of 50 for $1.00, 10 for 25 cents. 

The Pilgrim Press also publishes Gospel in Art, by Bailey, which 
contains all the pictures formerly found in Art Studies in the Life 
of Christ. This is a beautiful gift-book and may be purchased for 
$4.00, postpaid. 


APPENDIX IV 
INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 


Abraham’s bosom, 5 
Andrew, 66, 67 

Anthony, Saint, 21 
Aramaic, 12 

Archelaus, 4 

Arnold, Benedict, 90 ‘ 
Arnold, Edwin, 182 


Bailey, A. E., 129 
Baptism, of Jesus, 28-34 _ 
Baptism, of John, new meaning 


or, 
Barabbas, 179 
Bartholomew, 66, 71 
Bartimeus, 147 
Beatitudes, 77-84 
Benedictus, 21 
Bethany, 14, 148, 163 
Betrayal of Jesus, 174, 175 
Blake, William, 57 
Blasphemy, 57 
Bosworth, Edward I., 41 
Brooke, Stopford A., 31 
Brooks, Phillips, 26 
Brown, C. R., 66 
Browning, Mrs., 182 
Bryce, James, 115 
Buddha, 121, 191 
Buddhists, 99 
Bushnell, Horace, 136 


Ceesarea Philippi, 153 
Caiaphas, 186 

Caligula, 6 

Capernaum, 48, 49 

Carlyle, Thomas, 2, 98 
Spey of the Lord’s Supper, 


Christ, return of, 194 
Churchill, Winston, 168 
Commandments, the Ten, 93 
Confucius, 124 

Constantine, 185 

Cooley, C. H., 94 

Cross, meaning of, 183-188 


Da Vinci, 68, 171 
Damascus, 49, 92 
Daniel, Book of, 22 
Davies, Mary C., 90 
Dead Sea, 21 
Demons, 5, 6 
Disciples of Jesus, 65 
Disciples, the Seventy, 71 
Divorce, 6, 92 

Doré, 153 

Du Mond, Frank, 34 


Easter, 191, 192, 193 
Ecclesiasticus, 12 

Elijah, 20, 141 

Elizabeth, mother of John, 20 
Esdraelon, 31, 145, 185 ° 
Eusebius, 185 


Faith, 102 

Fasting, 60 

Father, God as, 91 

Fig-tree, Parable of, 157, 158 
Fire from heaven, 144 
Forgiveness, 81, 82 

Fourth Gospel, 173, 188 
Francis of Assisi, 142, 194 
Frank, F. K., 155 


202 


| Galilee, 46, 47 

| Galilee, Sea of, 47 

| Garden Tomb, 183 

/ Gehenna, 5 

| Gethsemane, 174 

| Gibbons, Cardinal, 101 


| Gilbert, ES 
| Gilder, R. W., 2 
| Gilkey, C Ho 5 


sod Samaritan, Parable of, 
| 93, 113 

| Gordon, G. A., 131, 135 

| Gospels, distinctive messages 
of, 108, 109 

Government of Palestine, 4 

| Gray, A. Herbert, 189 

) Grayson, David, 127 

iGrose, H. B., 128 





| Happiness, 92 

| Harnack, Adolf, 91 

| Healing, miracles of, 50, 57 

Hebrew language, 12 

| Henley, W. E., 79 

Herod the Great, 4; temple of, 
14-16 

Herodians, 17, 62, 164 


Hillis, N. D., 133 
Holy Grail, 133, 134 
Horne, H. H., 1384 
Horns of Hattin, 75 
Humility, 78, 99 


In Memoriam, 163 
Infanticide, 6, 7 
Inscription on cross, 184 
| Invictus, 79 
| Isaiah, 22, 64 
Isis, 7, 8 


James, disciple of Jesus, 65-68 
James, son of Alpheus, 66 





APPENDIX 


203 


Jesus: 
As heaier, 50, 56, 113 
Ascension, 193, 194 
Baptism, 32-35 
Birth, 3, 116 
Breadth, 116, 183-135 
Calling the disciples, 67 
Carpenter, 30 
Conflict with the scribes, 56- 
62 
Crucifixion, 43, 184-188 
Defender of women and chil- 
dren, 145 
Gethsemane, 174 
In Phoenicia, 114 
In temple as a boy, 12-16 
In the synagogue at Naza- 
reth, 10-12 
Influence of, 1, 2, 59, 193-194 
Last Supper, 170-173 
Life in Nazareth, 31 
Moral ideals, 125, 127 
Resurrection, 190 
Sympathy of, 108, 109 
Temptation, 37-44 
Transfiguration, 141-142 
Trial and arrest, 177-181 
Job, Book of, 79 
John the Baptist, 19-25 
John, the disciple, 65-68 
Jordan River, 38 
Josephus, 33 
Judaism, 7, 11 
Judas Iscariot, 69 
Judea, 46, 47, 66, 67 
Judging others, 122, 123 
Judson, Adoniram, 33 
Justice, social, 29, 61 


Key to the Kingdom, 63 

Kidron, 14, 152 

King, H. Cc. 51, 85, 91, 126 

Kingdom of God, "40, "41, 84, 
109, 118, 140 

Kipling, Rudyard, 78, 148 

Klausner, Joseph, 25 


204 


Knight, W. A.; 176 
Krishna, 122 


Lao-tze, 122 

Last Supper, 170-173 

Levi (Matthew), call of, 57, 58 

Lincoln, Abraham, 135 

Longfellow, 155, 173 

Lord’s Prayer, 100 

Lost Sheep, Parable of, 132 

Love, as centre of religion, 89, 
90, 92-95 

Lowell, J. R., 62 

Loyalty, 89-90 

Luke, Gospel of, 16 

Luxury, 6 


MacDonald, George, 99 
Machaerus, 25 

Malachi, 21, 40 

Marduk, Prayer to, 98 

Mark, Gospel of, 45 

Mary and Martha, 14, 148, 163 
Mary Magdalene, 58 

eee mother of Jesus, 29, 32, 


18 
Mathews, Shailer, 22 
Matthew, Gospel of, 40 
Matthew (Levi), 57 
“Meek of the land,” 28 
Meekness, true meaning of, 79, 
0 


8 

Messiah, 19, 21-24, 40-42, 139, 
140, 146, 147, 151-155, 178, 
190 

Milton, John, 34 

Mithraism, 7 

Moab, 38 

Mohammed, 37, 191 

Money, use of, 105-112 

Morals, 6, 7 

Moses, 39, 141 

Motives, importance of, 88-94 

Mount Hermon, 137, 145 

Mozoomdar, 87 


APPENDIX 


Mussolini, 77 
Mystery religions, 8 


Nazareth, 28, 51, 64 
Nebuchadrezzar, prayer of, 98 
Nero, 6 

Nichols, Robert, 100 

Notre Dame, cathedral of, 82 


Olivet, or Mount of Olives, 14, 
16 
Osiris, 7, 8 


Palestine: 
Boundaries, 46 
Form, 46, 47 
Geography, 2, 3 
Government, 4 
Population, 47 
Palm Sunday, 151 
Palmer, Alice Freeman, 125 
Palmer, G. H., 81 
Papias, 65 . 
Parables of Jesus: 
Fig-tree, 157 
Good Samaritan, 93, 113 
House on the Sand, 126 
Lost Sheep, 132 
Pearl of Great Price, 134 
Pharisee and Publican, 99 
eee Son, 107, 108, 131- 
3 
Rich Man and His Barn, 105 
Rich Man and Lazarus, 107 © 
Sower, 134 | 
Talents, 110 
Vineyard, 161 
Paradise Lost, 34, 77 
Parliament of Religions, 101 
Passion Week, 151 
Passover, 12-14, 172 
Passover meal, 170 
Pater, Walter, 121 
Paul, apostle, 67, 125, 190 
Peabody, F. G., 106 
Peacemakers, 83 





APPENDIX 


Perea, 46 

Peter, 56, 65-71, 177, 191 

Pharisees, 17, 62, 64, 123, 139, 
160 

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 38 

Philip, disciple, 66 

Pilate, 43, 46, 179, 181 

Plato, 58, 59 

Portraits of Christ, 128 

Prayer, 97-103 

Pride, 78 

Priests, 160 

Prodigal Son, Parable of, 113, 
131, 1382 

Purity, 82, 91 


Quarantana, 38 


Rabbi ben Ezra, 82, 83 
Race, problems of, 113-119, 
133 

Races, unity of, 101 
Rauschenbusch, W., 
Reid, James, 83 
Rihbany, A. M., 125 
Robins, Raymond, 186 


92, 105 


_ Ruskin, John, 107 


CN eee eee —OOOOOOEEEEEe 


Sabatier, Paul, 142 

Sabbath, 10, 11, 61, 62 

Sadducees, 16, 17, 139, 160, 
161, 178 

Salome, 25, 184, 193 

Samaria, 46 

Samaritans, 46 

Sanhedrin, 160, 178, 183, 187 

Science of Jesus’ day, 5 

Scribes, 16, 17, 56, 58, 163-168 

Self-realization, 90, 94 

Seneca, 6 

Sermon on the Mount, 24, 74— 
85, 91, 101, 126 

Service, 94, 125 

Shakespeare, 81 

Shaw, G. B., 2 

Sheol, 5 


205 


Siemiradski, 148 

Simkhovitch, V. G., 24 

Simon of Cyrene, 183 

Simon the Zealot, 66, 69 

Sin, forgiveness of, 57, 61 

Smith, G. A., 31, 32 

Socrates, 135 

Son of God, 39 

Son of Man, 140 

“Sons of the Law,” 13 

Sorrow, the mission of, 78, 79 

Soul, value of, 58, 59, 91 

Spirit, Holy, 193 

Stabat Mater, 184 

Stainer, 187 

Stevenson, R. L., 83 

Synagogue, 10-12; 52-54 

Syro-Phcenician woman, 114, 
155 


Talents, Parable of, 110 
Teasdale, Sara, 192 
Temple: 
Cleansing of, 158 
Herod’s, 14-16 
Temptations of Jesus, 37-44 
Tennyson, 133, 134, 163 
Thaddeus, 66 
Thomas, disciple, 67, 69, 71 
Tiberius Cesar, 45 
Tissot, 75 
Titian, 165 
Tolstoi, 43 
Transfiguration, 141, 142 
Trial of Jesus, 153 


Unity of inner life, 91 
Universality of Christianity, 
89, 115, 116, 183-135 


Vineyard, Parable of, 161 
Votaw, C. W., 75 


War, 83 
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 121 
Washington, B. T., 117 


206 APPENDIX 


Wesley, Charles, 33 Zealots, 17, 28, 33, 180 
Whittier, J. G., 192 Zechariah, 20 
Women in the gospels, 72 Zimmermann, 67 


Zoroaster, 191 
Zaccheus, 147 Zulu, story of a, 113 


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